BookOfCinz's Reviews > Blessings

Deeply moving, heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time… Ibeh is a new voice in Nigerian literature that I can’t wait to hear more from!

Once I picked up this brilliant book, I could not put it down. In Blessings we are taken to Nigeria where we meet a family with two boys. Obiefuna is the first son for Anozie and Uzoamaka. He is a wonderful dancer, deeply sensitive not the boy that his vey pragmatic father hoped for. Their second son Ekene is a natural athlete, a boy’s boy and who the father hoped Obiefuna would become. While Obiefuna’s mom tries to shield him from the world and how brutal it can be. His father catches Obiefuna and a boy from a nearby village in a compromising situation and he sends him away to boarding school.

Being banished from his family and only home he’s ever known, Obiefuna must now integrate into a school with a rigid structure and boys who are waiting to devour newcomers. He must hide who he is to fit in, all while trying to figure out is identity. Back at home the family is in turmoil as the mother and father conflicted about the best way to raise their son. Is sending him away what was best? Or will it bring him to his ruin? Can the father live with his decision? Will the mother ever forgive the father for what he did to her son?

Blessings is told from the perspective of Obiefuna and his mother, Uzoamaka which gives us a deep understanding of how they both see the world and what is happening to them. I truly loved this book, it was tender, fresh, well-written and makes you care deeply for the characters and the choices they are faced with.

I want to say that this book is what I expected of An Ordinary Wonder but didn’t get. Blessings is a brilliant debut and I cant wait to read what the author writes next.