Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala

BOOK REVIEW: Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala

Release Date: March 6, 2018

Genre: Fiction / LGBT / Contemporary

215 Pages

Published by Harper

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My Goodreads Rating

BOOK BLURB:

In the long-anticipated novel from the author of the critically acclaimed Beasts of No Nation, a revelation shared between two privileged teenagers from very different backgrounds sets off a chain of events with devastating consequences.

On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, D.C., he’s a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer—an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of prominent Washington insiders—and the one person who seems not to judge him.

When his father accidentally discovers Niru is gay, the fallout is brutal and swift. Coping with troubles of her own, however, Meredith finds that she has little left emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding toward a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape unscathed.

In the tradition of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, Speak No Evil explores what it means to be different in a fundamentally conformist society and how that difference plays out in our inner and outer struggles. It is a novel about the power of words and self-identification, about who gets to speak and who has the power to speak for other people. As heart-wrenching and timely as his breakout debut, Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala’s second novel cuts to the core of our humanity and leaves us reeling in its wake.


MY THOUGHTS:

Some book reviews are really easy to write...others, not so much.
Why is that? You might ask.
Because every now and then you encounter a book so extraordinary, with such a powerful message, that all of a sudden you lose the ability to form words.
Speak No Evil is one of these books.

When I finished reading it, I wanted to shout, or maybe go out for a walk, or get drunk, but instead, I just sobbed on the couch.  How can such a short novel (215 pages) pack such an emotional punch?
This book covers so many different issues (race, sexuality, religion, culture tradition, privilege), that I'm certain I won't be able to even give all the kudos it deserves.

“On the bad days, there is no color. I know there are colors. I can see the colors, but the world looks gray. The sounds are muffled by a crackling web of static that sits behind my eyes and buzzes in my ears.” 

Through this heartbreaking story about coming of age in a conservative immigrant family, Iweala takes us on a journey of self-discovery with Niru, who is torn between the guilt of not being the son his parents expect him to be and the freedom to accept (and love) who he truly is.  His brother OJ, advises him to not pick fights he can't win, when it comes to their parents, but Niru finds it hard to believe his brother would suffer the same judgement from their father.     

“I'm late, the kind of late that suggest I have no regard for the emotional health of my Nigerian parents who probably think I've been kidnapped by the enemies of progress.”

The story was beautifully written, with a natural flow and page-turning effect.  The characters felt realistic, specially with the recent prejudice events we watch on the news.  As we follow Niru and his friend Meredith through the differences in family values and culture, we see how easy it is for the human race to hate one another simply because of being different.

“I'm still me, I want to say to him, your son, but that would hardly help if I am currently everything wrong with the world.”

My final take is that this book should be a requirement in high school.
All teenagers should read it.
All parents should read it.
Everyone. Should. Read. This. Book.