Ayobami Adebayo

"A novel about a married Nigerian couple who must grapple with staggering levels of loss and betrayal in their quest to create a family for themselves" --

Stay with me

Heather Margaret

Wow. Just wow. The heartache from everyone in this book is something else.

Monicap

4.75 stars

TW: Child Loss

I picked up this book from a library book sale and read it immediately. Based on the title and description on the back, I thought this book would be primarily about the marriage between Akin and Yejide and how it fared after the arrival of Funmi, but I found that to not be case.

Yejide's mother, who died in childbirth, was I feel a far more pressing weight on Akin and Yejide's marriage than Funmi, especially as Yejide dealt with her marriage beginning to look more like her family growing up: when she had been ostracized by her many stepmothers and half-siblings, alone despite the size of her family. It shows in how and why her views on polygamy and motherhood changed: "God had been generous to me and I had no reason to hoard my husband. Anyway, what was a husband compared to a child that would be all mine? A man could have many wives or concubines; a child could only have one mother."

It was the loss of Yejide's children that broke Yejide, and Akin and Yejide's marriage, more than anything Funmi did or brought to the marriage.

As I read the book, I felt a little misled by how the description on the back of the book described it. But I kept thinking back to the first chapter, when Yejide said: "I only tell them a slice of the story: I was barren and my husband took another wife. No one has ever probed further, so I've never told them about my children." However misled I felt, it was because I began with an expectation and didn't feel I needed to ask anymore questions, or probe any farther. As Yejide's story unfolded the feeling went away. By the end of the book, I was in tears.

I was slightly confused by the perspective shifts between Yejide and Akin, but not terribly. That's the only thing keeping this book from a full five star, I think it well deserved it's place on the shortlist for the Bailey's Prize.

Sonia Grgas

I just couldn't warm up to the main characters despite sympathizing with their plights. The author might have shown them enjoying something, anything. As it was they were both drudges from the get go. The secondary characters fared better.

Yeah, I got to over 60% of this book and thought I’d just plow through to the end, but the senseless nature of the deaths (other than describing the pain) was when I said yup, fuck it, no

Gisela Ayala 

That was absolutely brilliantly engaging. It is scary (and probably also a bit admirable but controversial) the lengths to people in love will go through to start a family and to met their societies expetations. This is also a completely different culture from my own and I learned a lot and left the book with a better understanding on why Yejide and Akin did what they did. Not saying I agree with certain things BUT wow.

Susan Forsythe

2 1/2 ⭐️ This book was well-written but I had no empathy for the characters. I have felt a connection with flawed characters before but the I felt nothing for the Akin and Yejide.

Kathleen Mullins

I really enjoyed this book--it had a lot more mysterious/revealing plot points than I expected and was equally thought provoking and entertaining. I appreciated the dual perspective and dual time-period, although it wasn't super clearly laid out it worked for me. I think the pace was perfect, but would've liked the end to be slower actually to really sit with Yejide's emotions to build to the ending

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WELLCOME BOOK PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZENEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything - arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, appeals to God. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair.Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayobami Adebayo weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about our desperate attempts to save ourselves and those we love from heartbreak.

Stay with Me

Esme

This book was fantastic - powerful, heartbreaking and yet life-affirming at the same time. For some reason I rarely cry at books, but I wept like a baby at the end of this. The characters are flawed and the emotions are palpable... It's not grandiose in its language or themes, but still manages to metaphorically punch you in the gut. 

I don't read many books set in Africa that are actually from an African perspective (wonder why, @ 'canonical' literature !!!!) but this book just proves that I need to read many, many more.

Elena Garcia Navarro

I was surprised at how fast-paced and twisty-turny this novel felt. 

I also enjoyed how the author tackled themes such as motherhood, loss and grief and patriarchal ideas and values pervading in every aspect of society and the extent to which some people will go to conceal their lacks and shame.

Kath Lau

The book tells the story of a Nigerian married couple named Yejide and Akin. They're both successful, sophisticated and modern. But both of their families live by tradition and having children is a part of it as well as polygamy. Yejide and Akin have agreed that polygamy is not for them. But after years of being married with no children, Akin's family forces him to have a second wife so he can have children. Pressured and desperate, Yejide and Akin are willing to do everything to have a baby which eventually causes a huge turmoil in their marriage.

This was a very emotional read! I'm not entirely sure why but somehow, stories about motherhood or pregnancy have a special place in me.

This book is written in alternating points of view of Yejide and Akin which worked out so perfectly. Plus the plot twists (which were all pretty shocking to me) make the story more engrossing. The very first thing that I noticed was the author's style of writing. It took me some time to get used to the narration but once I did, I couldn't stop reading. It's unique and totally beautiful. There were many painful events that happened in the story and I actually cried quite a lot while reading.

Some Nigerian traditions such as the rituals during and after giving birth, the mythical "abiku" child, and folktales are also present in this book which I found really fascinating. Stay With Me is a thought-provoking and deeply moving read. I'm happy to have read this book and I hope you'll take some time to check it out if you haven't already.

Sameer Vasta

Reading Stay With Me, I think a lot about the tension between the old and the new, the past and the present. I think about how the ways things were done before, and the way we would like to do them now; I think about the inherent conflict that exists when the past and the present do not reconcile well. I think about how, these days, many people are craving the “good old days” and making decisions that take us back to an older time, without realizing the effects of those “old days” on the people who were maligned back then. This is a story about family, pregnancy, politics, business, and marriage. It is also a story of the tension between what once was and what now could be.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

Renee Blankenship

** spoiler alert **
           Stay With Me is Ayobami Adebayo's debut novel about a marriage between two people in Nigeria, a marriage based on lies and the deepest desire to have children in a culture where bearing children is put above loyalty in a marriage.

When I read the summary for Stay With Me, I knew it was going to be an emotional story but I had no idea the scope of heartache I would feel throughout my reading. My heart hurt in equal parts for Yejide, who wants nothing more than to bear a child of her own and for her husband Akin, who's infertility causes such self destruction its almost hard to read with each turn of the page. They both desire the same thing, yet are unable to be open and honest with each other about their heartache.

"It was the lie Id believed in the beginning. Yejide would have a child and we would be happy forever. The cost didn't matter. It didn't matter how many rivers we had to cross. At the end of it all was this stretch of happiness that was supposed to begin only after we had children and not a minute before." p.221

I had to take quite a few breaks throughout my reading of Stay With Me, to cope with my own emotions and process what was happening in the story. Yejide's life is full of devastating losses and sorrow, so much so that those final pages made my heart ache for her and all that she had lost despite the happiness found.

As someone who has dealt with infertility and the desire for children in her own marriage, watching Yejide and Akin struggle was what left me the most emotionally scarred during my reading. Everyone handles the struggle of wanting children in their own way and Akin's choice of building a marriage around his lie was the worst thing he could have done. It hurt my heart to watch Yejide discover his lies and see how that affected her own thoughts about herself.

"But the biggest lies are often the ones we tell ourselves. I bit my tongue because I did not want to ask questions. I did not ask questions because I did not want to know the answers. It was convenient to believe m husband was trustworthy; sometimes faith is easier than doubt." P. 233

I'm so glad I read this book, as much as it made my heart hurt and brought a lot of my own emotions to the surface. Thank you to Aaknopf for the copy!! I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a story outside their comfort zone, set in a place you're unfamiliar with. Especially if you don't mind shedding a few tears along the way.


Memorable quotes: 

"Besides, what would be left of love without truth stretched beyond its limits, without those better versions of ourselves that we present as the only ones that exist?" p. 75

"The reasons why we do the things we do will not always be the ones that others will remember. Sometimes I think we have children because we want to leave behind someone who can explain who we were to the world when we are gone." p. 119

"You can never cover the truth. Just as nobody can cover the sun's rays with his hands, you can never cover the truth." p.202

Ana Couto

I absolutely loved this book. The story centers around the concept of motherhood, the pressure to conform to cultural and religious obligations, and how far we are willing to go to achieve not only our personal desires, but also those of our loved ones. It’s heart wrenching and definitely not a light read, but 100% worth it.

Isabel 

Deailova El

Oluwapelumi Alo 

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything. But when her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me is a story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the power of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about the desperate attempts we make to save ourselves, and those we love, from heartbreak.

Stay with me

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