BOOKS! (Sweet Surrender + Two's Better)

This is me stalling. By the official end of summer I'd finished two incredible books about love written by Black authors: one a short story collection, and the other a novel. But that novel, as much as I adored its prose, was so morally-challenging that it made my head spin, and I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say about it via a review. So this fall I put off writing and reached for a couple palate cleansers instead. And what better way to cleanse my palate than by reading two relatively recent releases by Viano Oniomoh, one of my favorite romance authors? Past me never would've fathomed a romance novel about demons being a comfort read, but what can I say? There's value in finding an author whose work feels tried and true, and Oniomoh is one of those authors for me. For this review, first up is a tale of a bisexual loner in Nigeria and a nomadic demon taking their interactions from the dream world to the real world, once the loner commissions the demon to protect him from the cult he escaped. And then, a tale of two university students and lifelong best friends in the UK who decide to be each other's firsts so they won't graduate as virgins.

Sweet Surrender by Viano Oniomoh

Saint and Knight are both in desperate need of a stable sense of community. After realizing in college that he'd been born and raised in a cult, Saint is now living on his own and working as a primary school security guard. But this is after five years and multiple iterations of having to flee and start over in new areas, as cult members (including his own parents) have repeatedly located, stalked, and harassed him to return to his village. He yearns to save up enough to move into a bigger apartment where he can truly set down roots and feel safe, and aside from interacting with people at work and feeding the stray dog who hangs around his apartment building, Saint keeps to himself. He's a bisexual virgin who's never even been kissed, and the closest thing he has to a love life literally only exists in his dreams; for the past few months he's had a recurring dream about being chased through a dark forest, getting caught, and being taken to pound town by a demon he calls Knight. In hell, Knight (whose actual name is Cunning) technically has a community of fellow nomads who don't belong to any particular demon sect, but this group has strict rules meant to keep them all safe, one of which forbids fraternizing with humans in the mortal realm. Knight and his fellows often get high and go "dreamscaping" for fun, and after he accidentally enters Saints dream for the first time, their re-enactment of Saint's hunter/hunted fantasy becomes routine, with Knight even showing Saint how to summon him to the dreamscape directly.

But when it becomes apparent that Saint's former cult has located him yet again and is willing to resort to extremes to get him back, he's fed up with fleeing and takes a chance on summoning Knight to the mortal realm. And it works! They strike a deal wherein Knight agrees to ward off Saint's stalkers and protect him from all harm until Saint's not in danger anymore, and this deal is sealed with a kiss (per Knight's request). Now spiritually tethered due to their deal, Saint goes about his regular routine with Knight shadowing him at all times, and Saint insisting that they remain strictly platonic now that they're interacting in the real world. Nonetheless, getting to know Knight and having someone to talk to helps Saint gain the boldness to embrace and express more of his queerness: from painting his nails and wearing makeup to his trans friend Teresa's underground queer party (which he attends for the first time), to confronting the religious trauma that makes him feel incapable of wanting things and unworthy of happiness, to allowing himself to feel attached to Knight emotionally and sexually. As Knight gets banished from his nomadic group and needs Saint's assistance to find a fellow demon who's being abused by her human girlfriend, and as Saint's former cult becomes increasingly desperate (read: violent) in their attempts, the pair enable each other to believe that they both still have futures of their own to look forward to. And that a future together is possible as well, not just the stuff of dreams. 

As a follow-up to Sweet Vengeance and the second volume in Viano Onoimoh's "Sweet Demons" series, Sweet Surrender differentiates itself in intriguing ways while building on some of the rules that its predecessor set, especially regarding how hell and demon powers work. I'm currently too lazy to find my copy of Sweet Vengeance to confirm that the comparisons I'm about to make are sound, so I'm gonna go by my Sweet Surrender notes and make said comparisons anyway. Unlike Joy (the main human character in book 1), Saint doesn't want to harm the people who are harming him. He just wants to be left alone, and makes Knight promise to get rid of his stalkers without hurting anyone. He does occasionally fantasize about retribution, but protection is all he asks Knight for. However, that resistance against harming others goes out the window after the cult tries to kill Saint's dog (whom Knight revives), and later kidnaps Saint back to the village to enact a sick ritual in order to make an example of him (which Knight rescues him from). At that point, Saint gives Knight permission to "do what you have to do," i.e. kill the cult's pastor so the other villagers can hopefully reclaim agency over their beliefs and actions. All of that to say, although Joy and Saint both wish they could make their assailants pay, in practice Joy views violence as a valuable tool while Saint views it as a last resort.

 

As for Knight, he's clearly not a reader like Malachi is in book 1. Saint has to explain much of the human world as Knight becomes exposed to more of it, and Knight's sense of wonder about it all is adorable. Knight also seems to have more magical powers than I recall Malachi did (or perhaps he just flexes more of them to impress Saint). He can put on and take off a human appearance as a disguise, conjure any item out of thin air so long as he has a visual example to base his duplication on, make migraines go away with a touch of his fingers, revive dying dogs, the list goes on. However, as powerful as he is, he's unwilling to push his lover's limits. Both Malachi and Knight take consent extremely seriously and follow their respective human lovers' wishes at every stage, but Knight seems to restrain himself even more than his brother. (He's revealed to be the long-lost sibling Malachi was separated from when they were still baby demons, as initially mentioned in book 1.) Even when he can sense Saint's lust, Knight won't act on it or even broach the subject first; he waits on Saint's express consent for everything. For instance, after making their deal, Knight respects Saint's strictly-platonic stipulation because he understands that them having previously done copious amounts of the nasty followed by prolonged cuddling in the dreamscape, doesn't automatically mean he has permission to touch Saint now. Later, before they make out at Teresa's party while Saint is drunk, Saint has to ask/tell Knight to kiss him FOUR times before Knight obliges.

  

Allow me to offer a mere observation, not a complaint: the progression of this novel is surprisingly off to the races despite its leisurely start. It opens with Saint and Knight doing their primal chase play in Saint's dream, but page number-wise they don't become physically intimate in real life until the latter half of the novel. But then, the trajectory from them consummating their relationship to Knight murdering that pastor, and then to the pair moving into a bigger apartment a year later and committing their eternities to each other, feels... fast. Not unearned, but those events seem to flow quicker than I remember book 1 flowing. Regardless of the pacing, I do appreciate the sweet touches (pun intended) that Oniomoh adds to these characters' relationship, despite all the chaos happening around them. Such touches include Knight confiding post-coitus that Saint's first time was also his own first time, and the cutesy nicknames they give each other; Knight calls Saint "bunny/little bunny" or "rabbit/little rabbit" (referencing their chases as well as the roundness and softness of Saint's body), and Saint calls Knight "angel" with intentional irony.

If you're interested in kinky dreams, loners who don't want to be loners anymore, atypical descriptions of hell, cults, religious trauma and the exploitative nature of some churches, the importance of community (especially queer community), or the Nigerian secret gay club scene in S3E6 of 'Sex Education' (which chapter 7 is delightfully reminiscent of), then read this book!

 

Favorite quotes:

"He turned his thoughts to how good it had felt to be truly touched last night, the firm, warm press of Knight's big hand on his hip, the other tenderly cupping his head like he was something to be savoured, cherished—to be wanted so obviously and overwhelmingly it had probably ruined him for anyone else.

 

The all-consuming way Knight had kissed him, exploring his mouth like he'd been a man drowning of thirst who'd finally found a sip of God's own nectar" (39). 

 

"Knight dropped his hand. Saint blinked. He could still feel the brief touch on his temple, like he'd been kissed by sunlight" (59).

 

"Honestly, I'm just waiting for this guy here to realise what a catch he is so he can take all my advances seriously" (76). 

 

"Except, this was the first time I was being properly exposed to the outside world, and despite my devotion, I began to question things. I began to realise I might be bisexual. I began to want things. And it felt like, after I got this wanting in me, I just couldn't stop, even though I tried. God, I tried. After I opened my eyes to how things could be different, I couldn't close them again" (106). 

Two's Better by Viano Oniomoh

 

Born and raised in Nigeria, 21-year-old Ofure and Uzezi have been best friends for their entire lives. Their mothers are best friends, their fathers are college best friends who now operate an architecture firm together, and as the final year of their undergraduate architecture degree program in Manchester winds down, the expectation to start their careers in the UK and eventually return to Nigeria to take over their fathers' firm looms over both Ofure and Uzezi's heads. (These expectations are especially weighing on Ofure, who secretly doesn't want a career in architecture at all and would rather pursue her dream of becoming a comic book artist.) The prospect of graduating as virgins also looms over the pair's heads; they're both bisexual and have dated guys and girls before, but have never felt comfortable enough to go all the way. They've never even felt comfortable voicing how they want their ideal first times to go... except when in conversation with each other. They've supposedly never viewed each other romantically either, except for what Ofure refers to as the "Glitch" moments when they do. And by now it's clear (to the reader, not to Ofure) that Uzezi actually does fancy Ofure more than he's allowed himself to admit, and would act on his attraction to her if it were clear that said attraction were mutual; she'd only have to say the word. 

 

So one day when a frustrated Ofure considers giving up on making her first time special and just getting it over with with any random person, Uzezi only half-jokingly offers to be the man for the job. They could give each other their "perfect" first time. He tests the waters, but she plays it off, so he lets it go. But when Ofure consults her friends/roommates and they suggest that she kiss Uzezi to see if there's any chemistry, and she brings the idea up to him, Uzezi is down for it. A kiss turns into making out, turns into more making out, turns into touching, turns into a friend with benefits/fake dating arrangement where they wear matching outfits and go on dates, and gradually do have an abundance of non-penetrative and penetrative sex that they keep a secret from their close-knit queer Nigerian uni student friend group. Essentially, they agree to give each other the boyfriend/girlfriend experience while still being "just friends," because neither is certain about how their relationship would change if they were to date for real, or whether they even want their relationship to change. As they suss out their feelings for each other, and "Uzi" helps "Fure" come clean to her dad and strategize a new plan to follow her dreams, the two friends-turned-lovers embody the titular mantra that they reference whenever they're supporting one another through their problems, "After all, two heads are better than one." 

This is undoubtedly the breeziest of all the Oniomoh books I've had the pleasure of reading thus far. The stakes here aren't as high or intense as stalking and killing one's rapist, building an OnlyFans empire and a polyamorous triad at the same time, or escaping a cult. But Two's Better is a love story that offers that quintessential Oniomoh mix of fat, Nigerian, queer, endearing, silly, and smutty just the same. Also, in addition to her Nigerian identity, what a treat it is to notice the parts of herself that this author chooses to insert into her work; between Kian in Just for the Cameras and now Ofure in Two's Better, that makes two characters in separate books who abandon architectural career paths in order to be artists/entertainers. That detail is so specific that I can't help but presume that it's part of Oniomoh's personal story somehow. 

 

When it comes to how hot fat people are, I'm used to Oniomoh singing our praises, but I don't think I've ever read an author describe a man's bigness (fatness) as sexy in the particular way that she does here. Uzezi's size, the way his clothes strain against his arms and thighs, the space his body takes up, all of that only makes him hotter in Ofure's eyes. And it's refreshing to have the idea of a fat person physically taking up space framed as attractive rather than inconvenient, as a point of awe and arousal rather than derision. Speaking of arousal! I respect that despite all the first time talk at the beginning of the novel, after Ofure and Uzezi have oral sex for the first time and even after they start having PIV intercourse, neither of them makes a big deal about not being virgins anymore or about what "losing their virginity" means or doesn't mean. Their focus centers more on the gratification of their first time proving even better than they both envisioned, and the wonder of having experienced such desire and intimacy with their best friend since childhood of all people. And Oniomoh wasn't explicitly keeping count on the page, but I absolutely was; for every sexual encounter they have, Ofure reaches climax first and has more orgasms overall. Uzezi is intentional about doing his research and observing what Ofure specifically enjoys so that their encounters consistently have that outcome.

 

Before reading this book I had never heard of Rilzy Adams before, but Viano Oniomoh not only uses the epigraph to dedicate Two's Better to Adams and name Adams' novella Go Deep as a major inspiration, but she continues to sing Adams' and her book's praises in the acknowledgements section. So I guess I'll have to read Go Deep too, some day. In the meantime, if you're interested in college love stories, Black (especially Nigerian) queer friend groups, late bloomers, best friends becoming boo thangs, characters finding the courage to pursue artistic careers, or characters who have pink hair and anxiety and undiagnosed ADHD, then read this book! 

 

Favorite quotes:  

"As I looked at her, chest swollen with affection, all I could think of was that she deserved everything. I wanted to give her everything" (19).

 

"And two, you do trust your legs... You just don't trust yourself to fall. And I've realised—at least for me—skating is all about knowing how to fall" (104). 

 

"That's exactly what I want. Like, we go on a few dates—do things that get us not just falling in love, but falling in trust" (137). 

 

 "God. My pulse thundered; my blood felt like it had been replaced with liquid desire—I wanted Ofure to be mine, in every way that mattered. Romantically. Sexually. All the allys" (189).