Audiobook Review: The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Book: 125/150

Rating: 2.5/5

After Vivek's body shows up at their doorstep, his mother and father are stunned. What happened to Vivek?

Throughout their journey of discovering what happened to their son, they also begin to discover who their son was. With a gentle and mysterious spirit, Vivek often suffered from blackouts, and moments of disconnection with his self and surroundings. He also had friendships with several of the young women in the community, and his deepest relationship with his cousin, Osita.

I really wanted to like this one. There are some rave reviews for this one (and I can totally see why!) it just didn't resonate with me as much.

Things I liked:

- I thought the writing and storytelling was well done. There were some beautiful passages and even though you know Vivek's fate it was a captivating enough story to the reader to learn more about Vivek.

- The themes: coming of age novel, exploring self and sexuality, finding your chosen family.

- Learning about Vivek: For a book about Vivek, he is seemingly kept at an arm's length to readers. Even though you know his fate, it is up to the other charracters in the book: Vivek's family and friends to tell the story of who he really was.

Things that were a miss:

- It took me a while to get into this book and keep up with all of the characters. This could be because it was an audiobook, but I did have to stop and start it a few times.

- The incestuous relationship between Vivek and Osita (cousins). For me, personally it is really hard to read about incest. I felt there could have been a similar impact making them childhood friends rather than relatives, but I'm sure that the author had their reasons for this.

I will say there's a chance I would have enjoyed this book more, and appreciated the writing and storytelling more, if I read it versus listening to it.

If the premise and themes sound interesting to you, I would encourage you to read it. The average Goodreads rating for this one is 4.24, so it is loved by many!