One of the most common phrases I’ve seen used to describe Stay With Me is “stunning debut novel”. I hate to be cliche, but seriously, this is a stunning debut novel! Stay With Me follows the lives of Yejide and Akin, a young Nigerian couple who are suffering from fertility issues. Four years into their marriage with no children, their lives take a stunning turn. They each separately attempt to address the problems in their marriage, with devastating results. This novel asks how much is too much when it comes to making sacrifices for the sake of family.
Stay With Me is told from the perspective of both Yejide as well as Akin. The story moves back and forth through meaningful junctures in their lives, highlighting the complex, often highly fraught choices they make. Set against the backdrop of Nigerian political unrest, this novel is an incredible look into the lives of two people trying to reconcile their preconceptions of what married life should be with what their marriage actually becomes.
I think part of the draw of this novel is the way it takes your hand as it dives headfirst into Nigerian culture and gives this forthright portrayal of lives that are so different from a typical American existence. Some of the twists and turns this novel takes are gritty, dirty, and unyielding; these character’s choices are driven as much by cultural norms as by their own moral foundations. They have some very tough choices to make; you may or may not agree with them for a variety of reasons, but you can recognize that their cultural influences weigh heavily in their decision-making processes.
Stay With Me is a vivid, beautifully heartbreaking story that in the end still leaves room for hope. It is raw, real, and challenging. Full of love, tradition, family, hope, deceit, and loss, it will make your heart ache for the circumstances of Yejide and Akin’s lives. How do you define love? How far would go for those that you love? How far is too far? Can you come back from devastation? What might await you on the other side?
I listened to the audiobook version of this novel, rather than reading a print copy; the narrator is