I am currently reading An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma, but I'm struggling to get through it.

The thing is, there's enough good that I *want* to like it. I'm really enjoying the Igbo cosmology and the narrative voice of the Chi. I like the naivete of Nonso and Ndali and how things just happen to them without them seeming to have much agency (or do they?), but in trying to follow the storyline of the Odyssey, it loses something. At times it becomes a checklist of how someone's life can go wrong and as such feels like the misery lit that was popular in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

It also could have done with another edit too: parts of it are too wordy and repetitive. Instead of finishing the last 30 pages, I'm procrastinating a lot, hence this toot.

It's a pity as I enjoyed The Fisherman and feel Orchestra of Minorities has the essence of a great novel.

#BookReview #Literature #NigerianLiterature #Igbo #Reading