Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò - Book Review
The novel is set in 1980s Nigeria. It is about the marriage of Yejide and Akin. They’ve been married for years, and still everyone is waiting for them to have a child. We learn straight away that Akin has married again, a plan hatched by his mother as she hopes this wife will bring him a child. Due to this, Yejide is determined to become pregnant, trying many different things as a hope to start this miracle journey. Thus, she sets herself to visit this guru of sorts in the mountains, after that she is sure that she is pregnant. And she is, well, Yejide believes she is as she is growing a tummy, and no matter how many times the doctors say she isn’t, Yejide ignores them. Instead, she is suffering from a phantom pregnancy.
It takes months for Yejide to come to terms with the truth that this is a false pregnancy. But as years go by, she does fall pregnant, for real this time, not once, not twice, but three times. However, none of the children ever see each other, due to the death of each of them. Yejide, who is fearful for the death of her third child, leaves Akin to never return.
We know from the start that Yejide has suffered grief over the loss of her children. There are five parts of this novel, and each part starts in 2004 and then goes back in time.
There are many areas that I liked about this book. As I’ve already mentioned, I love how the title links with the themes that this book portrays. For example, with the grief that Yejide suffers over her lost children, she wishes for them to stay with her. Same with the fragility of married life, no matter what happens, there is a wish for Akin to stay with her, but in a sense of how it was at the start of their relationship.
I also enjoyed that the point of view was split between Akin and Yejide. It was all written in first person. Although the chapters never had their names at the top, to allow the readers to know who’s point of view we are looking through. The unique voices that Adébáyò has given them makes it quick and easy to know if we are looking from Akin’s eyes or Yejide’s.
When we go to 2004, the second pronoun ‘You’ is used quite a lot, and I rather enjoyed this. If the point of view was from Akin, the ‘You’ meant Yejide. Whereas if it was Yejide’s point of view, the ‘You’ was Akin. Doing this took down the fourth wall and made it seem like we were either Akin or Yejide. This is something that is difficult to do, it is clear that Adébáyò is talented.
The last thing I’ll mention that I enjoyed, was how Adébáyò weaved in the subplots. The main storyline was about the difficulty that Akin’s and Yejide’s marriage went through. Whereas the subplot was to do with life in Nigeria around that time. Doing this educated me into learning a bit about Nigeria’s society in the 80s, and about their political side.
There isn’t much that I do not like about this novel. The only thing I would say is not about the book but about how people in today’s life do go through this pain. Grief and navigating a marriage that has hitten wall is common, and it’s sad knowing that this is something that will still happen in years to come.
This is Ayòbámi Adébáyò debut novel, and she has done really well. She is definitely an author that we should all keep a lookout for, as I believe that she will be writing many more wonderful books.
Fantastically well written! That poor lady, seemed to never feel happiness. I was transported into your words and felt the suffering she went through.
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