Book Review: "The Sweetest Remedy" by Jane Igharo
"The Sweetest Remedy" by Jane Igharo
Synopsis: Hannah Bailey has never known her father, the Nigerian entrepreneur who had a brief relationship with her white mother. Because of this, Hannah has always felt uncertain about part of her identity. When her father dies, she's invited to Nigeria for the funeral. Though she wants to hate the man who abandoned her, she’s curious about who he was and where he was from. Searching for answers, Hannah boards a plane to Lagos, Nigeria.
In Banana Island, one of Nigeria's most affluent areas, Hannah meets the Jolades, her late father's prestigious family—some who accept her and some who think she doesn't belong. The days leading up to the funeral are chaotic, but Hannah is soon shaped by secrets that unfold, a culture she never thought she would understand or appreciate, and a man who steals her heart and helps her to see herself in a new light.
Rating: 3.75
Review: Over the past year or so, I’ve realized that I have a real soft spot for female African authors — their voice, their words, the way that they suck you into a story and make you think deeply at the same time you’re so utterly entertained. Jane Igharo’s “Ties that Tether” has been on my nightstand forever, and I am a little embarrassed that I read her second before I finally finished her first (I blame Book of the Month).
There’s no secret to those that know me in person that I have spent a good portion of my professional career working on an Africa portfolio, and while most of my travel has been in Southern and Eastern Africa, I have a real soft spot for the continent as a whole. That may be why I love African authors — they present a true picture of what life is like in cities like Nairobi and Cape Town and Lagos, no one colored by colonialism or poverty tourism. Jane Igharo does this masterfully — even going so far as to call out some of the stereotypes and blatantly correcting them in the text. I love that about her.
Onto this book! Hannah is a happy, late-20s San Franciscan, whose life is turned upside down when she’s invited to her father’s funeral in Nigeria — a man she has only met once before — to meet her siblings and receive her inheritance. Once in Nigeria, she meets her father’s wife, her four siblings, and various family members, including a very attractive man who isn’t family but is definitely part of the fold. More on him later.
We spend the book going between the points of view of Hannah and her four siblings: her domineering big sister, the glamorous twins, and the slacker younger brother. Through the lens of her father’s funeral and will reading, we get to see this family secret come to life and Hannah to hang out with her previously unknown family — as well as traveling to Nigeria for the first time. There’s a lot of heightened emotion, and it really adds to the tension of the story.
Beyond the family drama, there’s romance and career storylines, as well as a real examination of the meaning of family and the meaning of home. It’s an ambitious book, and Jane Igharo does a great job at telling this complicated story. My only quibble, and I don’t know what it says about me, is that I wanted more drama. Once Hannah arrived in Nigeria, her family accepted her too quickly for my liking — I would have preferred to see a little bit more tension that wasn’t fixed with a late night conversation, a shopping trip, or a food fight (yes, a food fight). I know the point was to get us to the grand finale of the book, but I was so enjoying spending time in Lagos that I wished there had been more depth there.
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