Unmaking Grace
Page 21
“Taking place mostly in Durban, South Africa, the tale doesn’t shy away from the reality of AIDS, poverty, or rampant sexual abuse, but instead of making those subjects its sole focus, Ntshingila folds them in with the other realities of life: love, joy, and hope. Ntshingila’s lyrically wrought North American debut is a slim yet satisfying novel sure to trigger a wide range of emotions.”
—Kirkus (Starred review)
“Those who appreciate realistic fiction will enjoy this novel in which young female characters learn to love themselves, no matter the circumstances”
—School Library Journal
“Full of heart and hope despite the emotionally challenging subject matter […] A haunting, all-too-true story with plenty of compelling depth.”
—Booklist Reviews
“It is a story about joy and hope and courage, and what it means to lift up others and be lifted oneself, and how one young girl found her voice in a world seemingly determined to take it away.”
—Shelf Awareness (starred review)
Bom Boy
Yewande Omotoso
Abandoned by his birth mother, losing his adoptive mother to cancer, and failing to connect with his distant adoptive father, Leke—a troubled young man living in Cape Town—has developed some odd and possibly destructive habits: he stalks strangers, steals small objects, and visits doctors and healers in search of friendship. Through a series of letters written to him from prison by his Nigerian father, a man he has never met, Leke learns about the family curse—a curse which his father had unsuccessfully tried to remove. Leke’s search to break the curse leads him to strange places.
“In this intricate and evocative novel about loss and separation, every character, exchange, sentiment and locale is rendered with due precision. Yewande Omotoso is a remarkably perceptive writer.”
—Sefi Atta, author of Everything Good Will Come
“How did Yewande Omotoso pack so much in such a slender book? Bom Boy is a remarkable exploration of history and identity, love and loss. Omotoso’s writing is honest, passionate and compelling.”
—Chika Ungiwe, author On Black Sisters Street and The Black Messiah
“Bom Boy is an intricately structured literary novel that powerfully evokes family as a source of loss and struggle, but also of hope.”
—Foreword Reviews
“Through three decades, two countries and multiple points of view, a complete picture of Leke’s life in the present slowly surfaces in Yewande Omotoso’s debut novel. […] Despite his quirks, Leke’s plight is curiously engaging as it speaks to the universal yearning to belong somewhere with someone.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Omotoso’s concise prose captures the racial complexities of the book’s backdrop while enabling her protagonist to find his own way with her evocative plotting.”
—World Literature Today