BOOKS! (You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty)

This is me no longer stalling! After nearly three months of me figuratively scratching my head, procrastinating by reading and reviewing two palate cleansers to get my mind right, and publishing my review of Homemade Love first, I'm finally returning to my first-ever Akwaeke Emezi novel to try and make sense of it for myself in writing. I can't remember the last time I felt intimidated about addressing a book that I've read, but that's honestly the headspace I've been in. Now that we're here, let's see what I come up with!

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

 

Feyi is a 29-year-old Nigerian American widow and fine artist who's relocated from Cambridge to Brooklyn, after surviving the violent car crash that killed her husband and high school sweetheart Jonah. Now that she's become accustomed to Brooklyn and it's been five years since Jonah's death, Feyi starts playing the field again; the novel literally opens with her having unprotected sex with a stranger in a bathroom at a house party. That stranger is Milan, who becomes Feyi's casual partner for some weeks; neither wants to pry into the other's life, and both are too protective of their own baggage to be too vulnerable with each other. One night when Milan invites Feyi and her roommate and bestie Joy to hang out with him and his boys at a bar, Feyi meets Milan's friend Nasir. Initially unnerved by the intensity of Nasir's interest in her (though the attraction is mutual), Feyi ends her fizzling arrangement with Milan and begins seeing Nasir semi-platonically. Dating with intention is a muscle Feyi wants to rebuild but doesn't feel safe doing just yet, so Nasir offers to take things slowly; officially they're merely "friends," but they both know that he wants a serious relationship with her, and they do occasionally go on dates and make out. Unprompted, and no doubt trying to win her love, Nasir does Feyi the biggest favor of her career: securing her a spot in a prestigious museum art show on the Caribbean island he's from, flying with her there, and letting her vacation with him at his father's mansion. However, Nasir's 47-year-old father isn't just any dad. He's Alim Blake, a Michelin-starred chef, a culinary TV star, and a seasoned art collector. And he's foine. And he's a widower. 

 

Feyi is drawn to Alim immediately when Alim picks Feyi and Nasir up from the airport, and despite her efforts to compartmentalize her wild thoughts and maintain her distance from him, she and Alim keep having these unexpectedly deep moments of connection. First, an unplanned meeting in one of the mansion's gardens, in the middle of a sleepless night for both of them, during which they exchange dead spouse stories. Then, a two-person sunrise hike up a mountain, which results in Alim divulging to Feyi that he had a male potential life partner whom he felt obligated to give up, because his then-college-aged children (Nasir and Nasir's younger sister Lorraine) couldn't accept him being with a man. On that mountaintop, they share a hug initiated by Feyi that lasts a little too long. Then, a spark of brazen impulsivity where Feyi licks mango foam off of Alim's fingers in his private test kitchen, which both shocks and arouses him (confirming for Feyi that he wants her too). Then, Alim being visibly moved by Feyi's art exhibit—which centers around losing her husband like much of her work does—and dedicating a dish to her journey of grief during the multi-course dinner he's prepared, for the surprise celebration party that Nasir organized. Then, after Feyi's time on the island gets extended due to a new commission, and almost immediately after Nasir leaves for a week-long work trip to another island, a lesson in julienning carrots switches into Alim and Feyi passionately kissing in the mansion's main kitchen. (Alim kisses her first.) And then, after so many heart-to-hearts that it's almost overkill, this younger woman and older man decide that they want to explore what their new love could become at all costs. They make each other feel so much less alone in their grief, that they're willing to risk Nasir and Lorraine hating them for the opportunity of a real relationship together.

 

Before I address why this novel made my head spin, let me make clear that I adored You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty immediately upon starting it, and I adore it still. Take as proof the note I wrote in my journal when I passed the novel's halfway point in mid-August: "I really do love this book. The prose is so vivid and alive and full of texture/sensation/feeling. Emezi is so brilliant at balancing horniness ('desire') and grief, two very distinct forms of yearning. What a unique 'romance novel' this is." And I was endlessly intrigued by Emezi's choice not to name the island that Nasir and Alim call home; maybe readers who are from the Caribbean or have Caribbean heritage would be able to intimate which island it is, but for me it was a fun guessing game that had me looking at countless maps and googling my butt off! (We know for sure it's not Trinidad, Tobago, or Antigua, each of which are referred to as islands that are elsewhere. The mention of monkeys seems to narrow it down to Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sint Maarten/Saint Martin, or Barbados. On the other hand, when Alim cooks lionfish for Feyi's celebration dinner, he mentions that it's an invasive species in that island's waters, which made me think of Curaçao. But the island is also described as being a short flight from Antigua, so Curaçao couldn't be it. There's also a conversation where a museum security guard asks, "oui?" at the end of a sentence to confirm that Feyi understands what he's saying. So I'm going to guess, assuming that Nasir and Alim's island is a place that exists in real life, that it's Sint Maarten/Saint Martin, which has mountains, monkeys, lionfish, and French as one of the official languages. Obviously I could be wrong!)

 

Now for the head spinning. When Fool of Death was first making its rounds and receiving an immense amount of attention and acclaim, I tried to avoid any details because I knew I wanted to experience it for myself. One sentiment that filtered through and has continued filtering through ever since the book's 2022 publication is how "messy" it is, and how messy Feyi is in particular. But having previously gotten familiar with Queenie from Queenie and Edie from Luster, I aimed to be open-minded and stay on Feyi's side. Call it protectiveness or morbid curiosity, but when it comes to these Black women characters in their 20s who are (or perceived as) unlikeable and making outlandish decisions, I want to hug them and try to figure them out more than I want to judge them. And for most of Fool of Death I sincerely was on Feyi's side; it's so obvious that she's going to act on her attraction to Alim despite knowing she shouldn't, so why bother being moralistic about it? Let her get hers! Plus, even though Nasir has a right to be upset with her for betraying him—they were never officially an item, but Feyi still crosses the bounds of friendship and hospitality by getting with his dad—his discomfort with Alim's gender expression and refusal to support Alim's previous gay relationship reduced my sympathy for him early on. Furthermore, as salacious as it seems, Feyi and Alim do make sense. They're both artists who respect each other's expertise. They've both been widowed by tragic accidents (Alim's wife drowned), and both understand the rupture of such a destabilizing loss. They've both been in relationships with their same gender that didn't or couldn't work out. (Feyi had a temporary fling with Joy in the past, and she describes her mountaintop moment with Alim as "the most bisexual conversation," but neither of them explicitly claim a label to describe their orientations.) If, say, Nasir is the fruit, then Alim is the source of that fruit, so hypothetically Feyi would get more of what she enjoys about Nasir by going straight to the source. And unlike with Nasir, she doesn't need extra coaxing, convincing, or mulling over to decide that she fancies his father.

 

My perspective shifted when I reached Lorraine's confrontation with Alim in the mansion library, after the whole island (including Nasir) has found out about him and Feyi, with Lorraine being the voice of reason that her father refuses to yield to. In my head, when Alim was just a composed silver fox in touch with his feminine side, kissing and pillow-talking with Feyi, his obstinance about choosing her (choosing himself) over his kids almost made sense. But when he was a dad trying to placate his daughter while committing to not changing anything about his actions, I—as a fellow daughter with father issues—read him and his explanations in a completely different light. He even has the nerve to argue that him hurting his children with his choice doesn't make his choice wrong. Theoretically true though that idea may be, it still sounds selfish and unhinged in this context! And Feyi, as she eavesdrops on the discussion and gets internally indignant on his behalf, sounds selfish and unhinged too! That entire scene is what made me go, Wait... is this narcissism? I know that term gets batted around to the point of meaninglessness on social media. Yet and still, the more I read Feyi and Alim past their initial coupling—especially when they're in a position to have to defend said coupling—the less I saw them as sultry and daring and the more I saw them as... yeah, maybe narcissistic is the word. 

 

So I'm conflicted about Feyi. It could be the in-mourning of it all, the lust of it all, the summertime tropical fairy tale of it all, the stereotypical Nigerian arrogance and dramatics of it all (or so I've heard), the "I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my sh*t" of it all (in the words of Erykah Badu), or the potential narcissism of it all, but Feyi doesn't truly care beyond what she wants; all else is secondary. She's a prime example of someone who doesn't necessarily try to hurt people, but who's still out for number one (herself) at the end of the day. At least twice she expresses a belief that nothing really matters, and she frequently repeats the sentiment that being reckless makes her feel alive. Feyi is also chronically self-absorbed, even in her insecurities: constantly fretting over never belonging anywhere, feeling like an imposter as an artist, fearing that she's not good enough for Alim or worthy of a future with him, etc. And when she does contemplate how her decisions might impact others, her concern is largely about how she'll be perceived, the inconvenience of dealing with those people being upset, or how they'll make her feel like a bad person. This results in multiple instances where one would normally be expected to be remorseful or at least a little apologetic, and she becomes defensive and self-righteous instead, as if she's the injured party, frequently conflating her self-righteousness with empowerment or feminism. 

 

Even eavesdropping on Lorraine and Alim is something Feyi justifies by reasoning that since she knows they're talking about her, waiting in her room—which she'd initially volunteered to do out of respect for their privacy—equates to hiding, hiding implies shame, and she doesn't want to be "a small girl" by cowering in  shame. But her putting a spin on her ridiculousness is most evident in her later interactions with Nasir. (See: Sobbing that Nasir treats her "like trash" when he rages at her about her involvement with Alim and scatters her belongings while trying to kick her out of the mansion; taking irate offense at what she interprets as Nasir not respecting her as a woman or an artist when he causes a scene at the museum in retaliation; and supposedly being pained and insulted by the possibility that Nasir might think of her as a gold-digging groupie, because that would be unfair to her, and she believes Nasir should know her better than that based on all the delicate moments they'd shared.) Ultimately I agree with Feyi that she doesn't owe Nasir as much as he thinks she does, but the fact that his behavior toward and opinion of her have changed so drastically as a direct consequence of her hurting him, someone she claimed to value as a friend, seems to go over her head. It's as if she thinks him being incensed at her and holding onto his anger is immature or irrational, which makes me feel like I'm crazy for understanding where that sustained anger is coming from. And I know I'm not crazy!

 

All in all, do Feyi and Alim give me the drama I paid for? Yes. Am I still scandalized by how they handle the fallout? Yes. But I also must ask myself: If we as progressive people, thinkers, and readers say we want women (in real life and in fiction) to be more self-interested, more unapologetic, more proactive in expressing their desires, more audacious in going after what they want, and more keen to prioritize their pleasure and self-preservation... do we still mean that when the woman in question acts the way Feyi does? And although I'm tempted to conclude that Feyi and Alim are terrible people, I've also never been in love, especially not after the death of a spouse, and certainly not to the extent that I'd be willing to forsake all else to take a chance on it. Maybe if I'd also experienced losing the love of my life and believing for years that I'd never love again, until I suddenly and all-consumingly fell for someone new, then I would understand. Who's to say?

 

I purposely waited until this precise moment (the end of my process writing this review) to examine the reader's guide and Akwaeke Emezi interview at the back of Fool of Death, in an attempt to ascertain where this author's head is at. I figured, maybe they wrote these romantic leads to be so baffling, to be "wrong," on purpose, and doesn't necessarily think their flippancy toward others is acceptable? But now I know that, in addition to intentionally making Nasir and Alim's island fictional and unintentionally leaving it nameless, Emezi doesn't regard Feyi and Alim's attitude or actions as unconscionable at all. Emezi admittedly "loves mess," is fascinated by what people do when they put their own desires first, and is optimistic about the prospect of people becoming sympathetic toward Feyi and Alim after reading their story. While I can't say I'm completely aligned with Emezi's perspective on what they've written, I can say that I haven't had a book challenge me ethically or morally like this in very long time. Bravo! I'm a conflicted new fan, but a new fan nonetheless! (My best friend Marlee recently read Emezi's debut novel Freshwater and came away from it with the same impression as me; we're mutually astounded by their writing prowess, but also can't help wondering about the person behind the project. In Marlee's words, "You are [Emezi is] a person in a moral grey area that I don't know what to do with." Then again, maybe we're simply too square to fully get on board with them. I'mma still read Little Rot though! Ordered my copy of that before I even finished Fool of Death.)

 

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty calls to mind a separate conversation I had with Marlee early this year, about Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers album, which didn't resonate very strongly with me when I listened to it upon release. Two things made a world of difference: going through so much more life since that initial listen (including joining the 30+ club and weathering the death of a close loved one), and hearing the album with my 2025 ears in preparation for the Grand National Tour. Now Mr. Morale is one of my favorite Kendrick albums! Similarly, if I'd read Fool of Death when it first came out and the hype was still fresh, I doubt that I would've been able to appreciate it back then. Now? As flummoxed as I am by Feyi and Alim's lack of remorse, I get it. The horniness, the grief, the weight of feeling unmoored for a prolonged period of time, the desperation to not be alone, the willingness to fight to hold onto whatever or whoever finally assuages your loneliness for the first time in ages? I get it. And coincidentally, Mr. Morale and Fool of Death were both released in May 2022! Ain't that something? If you're interested in sexually free female characters, bisexual DILFs, forbidden romance, stories set in the Caribbean, life after loss, Black fine art (Emezi name-drops numerous Nigerian/Nigerian American/Black American artists), or fine cuisine (Emezi obviously did plenty of research on that too), then read this book! If you're in the mood to read something equal parts gorgeous and vexing, then read this book! 

 

Favorite quotes:

"I know she does [love me]. And that's something I've learned in the years since, that there are so many different types of love, so many ways someone can stay committed to you, stay in your life even if y'all aren't together, you know? And none of these ways are more important than the other" (118).

 

"There were moments that broke timelines, that cut them so deep and so bloody that they would never stitch back together again, that the life before the cut was as dead as the person who was lost. Just memories through a haze of hurt" (130).   

 

"'He would've thought it was hilarious,' she said. 'He loved people being messy as fuck—he said it was one of the best things about being human, how we could make such disasters and recover from them enough to make them into stories later'" (184-85). 

 

"...but I can't change the circumstances that brought her to me, and with her, the possibility that my life could go in a direction I thought was closed off. And for this, this possibility? You're so young, baby girl, your whole life is still nothing but possibilities. You can't possibly know what it's like to lose it, and how much even a chance of its return is worth it to me" (236). 

 

"But then I see Alim. And he's smiling at me, and I don't understand why I'd throw the world over a cliff for him, but it's so clear, and every minute I'm with him, all those things drop off me like dead skin... I feel like the world wanted to remind me that it loves me, and so it gave me him. It gave me a chance, that possibility he's always talking about, and I seized it with both hands because I know, and Alim knows, how fucking rare it is for that door to open, even by a crack, and what it's like when it closes" (265). 

BOOKS! (Homemade Love)

I initially wrote this as double review (as is my custom) featuring the two previously mentioned fiction books, about love, written by Black authors, that I read over the summer. But I had so much to say about You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty that I had to separate it into its own review. So this here review is solely dedicated to a 1986 short story collection by the great J. California Cooper. 

 

Homemade Love by J. California Cooper

 

I've been meaning to add more J. California Cooper to my life ever since I read Life Is Short but Wide, but I kept not getting around to it. I even bought a couple of her books in 2023, telling myself that it would be my year to finally delve back into her work, but not so. When I found a copy of Homemade Love at Dawn Treader in Ann Arbor in April 2025, I told my self that at the very least I would read this one, this year. And I made good on that! In 13 stories, Homemade Love covers various forms of love that are cultivated and manipulated, cherished and squandered, yearned for and mourned over, lost and found, by regular degular Black people in everyday life. Most of the lead characters learn to embrace the love they have (or had) in their lives, however imperfect or delayed it may be, because they recognize how that love comes without airs or pretense. Cooper describes it best in her Author's Note at the beginning of the book: 

I choose the name 'Homemade Love' because it is love that is not bought, not wrapped in fancy packaging with glib lines that often lie. Is not full of false preservatives that may kill us in one way or another. Is usually done from the bottom up, with care, forethought planning, and consideration for others. It is work done for the reward, that is the reward. Is usually solid, better and memorable. Is sought after. Do not think only of food either. Many more things, the best things, were all made at home, first... 
 
Homemade goes a long way. Usually lasts longer than we do.
 
So, I said, I would like some Homemade Love.
 
Have some.

"Funny Valentines" is one of my favorite stories in this collection, with the narrator fondly recounting her decades-long friendship with her country cousin Dearie B, an intellectually challenged woman 11 years her senior. The lessons Dearie B teaches the narrator about visiting the dead and stubbornly seeking one's own happiness in life, have left a profound impression on me. Additionally, Dearie B's secret aspiration to wear lacy black lingerie and have a fulfilling sex life (both of which she eventually attains) reminds me of a mobility-challenged newlywed in Cooper's Life Is Short But Wide, who has the most tender lovemaking scene with the man she's chosen to spend her life with. I'm impressed by Cooper's audacity to depict disabled people as desirous and sexually active just like anyone else.

 

Speaking of which, Cooper doesn't leave older or conventionally unattractive people (particularly women) out either. "At Long Last" depicts a widow finally experiencing affection and sexual satisfaction with a new beau in her late 60s, after a lifetime of thankless devotion to her recently-deceased husband and her grown children. It also features the unforgettable line uttered by the woman's best friend, "What you need is someone to tip your basket!" In a similar vein, "Down That Lonesome Road" is narrated by a woman who uses a few lies and some homemade wine to make a match between her amputee war veteran cousin and her 35 to 40-year-old widowed friend. This, after the widow has confided in the narrator about an unsuccessful attempt at using a dildo that she'd bought after not being touched for four years. "When Life Begins" is surprisingly charming despite its unfortunate beginnings; somewhere in the country, a 35-year-old man named Wally and a 28-year-old woman named Marriage, who each lost a parent and their two front teeth through a series of unfortunate events, find romance and kindness in each other when they cross paths one random day. And opening with the argument that there's magic in every life, "The Magic Strength of Need" follows Burlee, an "ugly" girl who becomes a beauty industry tycoon by tapping into her magic: a penchant for giving herself quiet time to think, a willingness to learn new skills and collaborate with others, and a determination to retire her mother and marry rich. Not only that, but the magic of her need for love enables her to earn a second chance with Winston, her childhood friend and longtime business partner, whom she spent decades spurning and only using for sex because she thought he wasn't rich enough for her to marry. 

But there are some characters who are beyond help, refusing to reconsider their perceptions of people and how life works. "The Watcher" starts off comically deranged, but reads like a horror story by the end. A church lady—presumably middle aged, presumably retired or a homemaker, thus having an excess of free time to be nosy— descends further and further into religious psychosis as she boasts about her duty as God's disciple to uphold her community. This self-appointed duty involves spying on her neighbors and meddling in their lives to expose their misdeeds of fornication, adultery, drinking too much, and being a marriageable woman who chooses to remain single and live alone. The church lady goes to extremes to instigate situations, and takes no accountability for the harm that results, including when she gets one woman beaten and another woman shot. Neighbors are constantly moving away from the neighborhood because of the turmoil she causes, meanwhile, she loses her entire family because she's too busy watching others to pay attention to her own household. (Her daughter almost dies from a DIY abortion before eventually running away for good, her son dies from a heroin overdose in his bedroom, and her husband leaves her for the aforementioned single woman across the street that she's made him help spy on.) "Swingers and Squares" is similar to "The Watcher" as it's also narrated by a woman who believes everyone else is misguided except her. After being abandoned by her cheating husband, and proceeding to fail herself and her children as a neglectful and emotionally immature single mother for the following decades, the narrator masks her envy toward her more secure neighbor Lana. By the narrator's logic, Lana is "dumb" and a "square" for entering into the "slavery" of marriage and creating a normal, stable life for her family.

 

As someone who believes most (if not all) texts are in conversation with each other so long as readers are willing to draw the connections, I was pleased to have Homemade Love bring other Black women authors' work to my mind. The story "Living" reminds me of the Nella Larsen story "Freedom," where a man similarly leaves his wife to explore solo life in a big city, only to horribly regret it later. Part of my motivation to buy Homemade Love in the first place was the fact that it felt thematically similar to Alice Walker's short story collection In Love & Trouble. And what do you know, Alice Walker was a mentor of J. California Cooper's, and Cooper's previous collection A Piece of Mine was the first book Walker published as co-founder of Wild Trees Press! So if you're a fan of Walker, are eager to read more of Cooper's writing like I am, or have a fondness for down home living and loving, then read this book! 

 

Favorite quotes: 

"Life is really something too, cause you can stand stark raving still and life will still happen to you. It's gonna spill over and touch you no matter where you are! Always full of lessons. Everywhere! All you got to do is look around you if you got sense enough to see!... My Aunt Ellen, who I'm going to tell you about, always said, 'Life is like tryin to swim to the top of the rain sometime!'" (1). 

 

"Life is more like the rain. The river and the lake lay down for you. All you got to do is learn how to swim before you go where they are and jump in. But life don't do that. You always gets the test fore you learn the swimming lesson, unexpected, like rain. You don't go to the rain, the rain comes to you. Anywhere, anytime. You got to prepare for it!... protect yourself! And if it keeps coming down on you, you got to learn to swim to the top through the dark clouds, where the sun is shining on that silver lining" (6). 

 

"I hear he is a strong man and I blive what you need is somebody to tip your basket!... Girl, you told me it ain't never been tipped!" (106).

"The world got a lot to pay for messing up a lotta people's minds with all that division stuff!... when they made ugly and pretty, they was messing with people's minds! Their lives!

 

I'ma tell you something! God didn't make no ugly people! Man did! Talking about what was pretty and what was ugly. It's somebody for everybody, then everybody is pretty to somebody! And it wasn't none of them people's business who started this ugly-pretty business to get in everybody's business like they did! You ever notice that somebody the world says is ugly, you might even agree, but when you get to know that person, you don't see ugly no more?! That goes to show you! God didn't make ugly people! Man did!" (118).   

"'I got some love I want to share! There ain't nothing... sweet... in my life anymore. All day, every day, all night, every night, all the same... just me.' She looked at me. 'Oh, not just sex, not just sex, Bertha" (152).

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 continues to praise Adams and her book 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).