Scan barcode
A review by marinaemoore
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
3.0
This one left me feeling very torn.
On the one hand, the writing and prose were absolutely beautiful, the setting and cultural elements of this book were great, and the themes were compelling.
On the other hand, I found this book too short for the amount of characters/topics it covered and, in my opinion, we learn relatively little about Vivek Oji. There are many seemingly random characters thrown in that come with a lot of backstory that didn’t feel relevant.
I ultimately felt like every time I finally got invested in the story, the focus would shift to some other character and it took you out of the flow of the main story in a manner that I found unnecessarily disruptive.
On the one hand, the writing and prose were absolutely beautiful, the setting and cultural elements of this book were great, and the themes were compelling.
On the other hand, I found this book too short for the amount of characters/topics it covered and, in my opinion, we learn relatively little about Vivek Oji. There are many seemingly random characters thrown in that come with a lot of backstory that didn’t feel relevant.
I ultimately felt like every time I finally got invested in the story, the focus would shift to some other character and it took you out of the flow of the main story in a manner that I found unnecessarily disruptive.