Hate is such a harsh term, so I’ll just say that I really disliked so many things about this book. I hated the ginger scene. I was so angry because it came as a response to her not even knowing how to explain the violation her body had just been put through. I kept asking myself so many questions that I already knew the answers to. Why couldn’t any of the adults ask her how she lost her virginity? Why couldn’t she be given the benefit of the doubt? Why was the first assumption that she willingly lost it? A girl her age?? Are we being serious? That kind of abuse, done so casually and so early on in her life, made it hard to come to terms with the reality. A huge part of our West African culture did, and still does, blame the girl child for misfortunes not of her doing. No one in that household had a functioning conscience, because at that age, we all know what parts of our cultures aren’t morally sound. We just choose to still follow them because that’s what society dictates. A society with no conscience for the female child.

Then we see her grow and start rejecting a lot of those oppressive standards by being rebellious. It doesn’t help that there’s so much stigma around the sexual being of girls and women in these societies of ours, so that didn’t help her case either. Imagine sending such a naive girl out into the world and expecting her to conform to the same societal norms that have already been oppressing her. It won’t work, and confinement was the last thing she needed; especially a boarding school. So yes, the environment at the boarding school didn’t help. It was intense, isolating, and borderline toxic. I could see why she started spiraling, but I still kept wishing she’d just act right for five minutes. She’s been through a lot, and the trauma is understandable, but it’s like she had a self-destructive personality too.

And It didn’t help that her family basically gave up on her too. Because she had so much promise, and they just watched her unravel and actively participated in it. What happened in her family house in Lagos should have never happened. She was grown enough to know better, and there were too many grown-ups around who should have known better too. That, on top of it all, just made me dislike so many things about this book. The setup had so much potential: a half-Nigerian, half-Ghanaian girl growing up in Ghana, navigating love, identity, and trauma. But instead of rising above it all, it’s like she just… crumbled. And the storyline too didn’t seem to care. And yes, the ending did try to salvage it, but the damage had already been done. As a reader, I couldn’t come back from the mentality the book unironically pushed me toward.

I love African literature with my whole heart, but this? This didn’t do justice to what the genre gives. It cracked open so many complex issues and then refused to do anything meaningful with them. It could’ve been so much more powerful. Instead, it felt like a wasted opportunity. I honestly wanted better for it, but I guess I just have to settle for what I got.