A review by sharkybookshelf
Nearly All The Men In Lagos Are Mad by Damilare Kuku

emotional funny lighthearted

4.0

A collection of short stories focussed on women navigating the perils of searching for love in Lagos and the range of feckless men they are likely to encounter.

I enjoyed this excellently-titled collection of outrageous, though not unbelievable, stories. Is it deep and meaningful, hard-hitting literature? No. Is it entertaining? Absolutely - Kuku’s writing is fresh, vibrant and fun to read. Reading about Lagos as it is now and from a very adult perspective is slightly weird for me, as it’s so far removed from my own (oyinbo) childhood experience of the city over two decades ago, but I loved reading about a side of Lagos I never encountered. Although effectively a love letter of solidarity to the women searching for and surviving love in Lagos, everyone in this collection is presented as either a hustler or somebody to be hustled (a hustlee?), and the men of Lagos really do not come out of it well. The result is an entertaining series of stories - some funny, some heartbreaking - all on the melodramatic side, yet also all entirely believable. My favourites were probably Beard Gang and Catfish for the unexpected direction they both took and Cuck-Up for the insane opening line (which, since this was a library book that I have since returned and I did not write it down, I cannot enlighten you further). An enjoyably outrageous yet believable collection of short stories about the challenges of searching for love in Lagos.