One day, when Meredith presses Niru to push their
friendship further, Niru, a Nigerian-American male who
happens to be a talented athlete as well as someone
destined for Harvard, comes to a realization about
himself: he is gay. When Meredith attempts to help him,
her efforts land Niru into trouble when he is forced to
go back briefly to Nigeria to undergo a gay conversion
therapy and upon his return, neither his nor Meredith's
life is destined to be the same again.
What worked really well for SPEAK NO EVIL is the fact
that I get a chance to see how people from Africa made a
home for themselves in America and I really liked being
part of the Nigerian culture and learning fascinating
tidbits about the country. I also enjoyed some of the
insights that the author provided when it comes to being
an immigrant, such as how all nations have their own
problems.
One of the things I found confusing is the fact that dialogue
had no quotation marks and instead bled into the
paragraph itself; another is that Uzondinma Iweala has at
least quite a number of fascinating ideas; that of a
student of color discovering he is gay and then being
forced to go through gay conversion therapy as well as
how his sexuality will impact his conservative family and
their values. There is also the inclusion of police
brutality and the aftermath and exploration of being an
immigrant and of what it's like to grow up in a
privileged area.
If you are looking for a unique story that talks about
immigration from Africa as well as a YA novel that is
intense and reminiscent of THE PERKS OF BEING A
WALLFLOWER, SPEAK NO EVIL might prove to be the right
book for that reader.
In the long-anticipated novel from the author of the
critically acclaimed Beasts of No Nation, a revelation
shared between two privileged teenagers from very
different backgrounds sets off a chain of events with
devastating consequences.
On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two
attentive parents in Washington, D.C., he’s a top student
and a track star at his prestigious private high school.
Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright.
But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer—an abominable
sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows
except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of
prominent Washington insiders—and the one person who
seems not to judge him.
When his father accidentally discovers Niru is gay, the
fallout is brutal and swift. Coping with troubles of her
own, however, Meredith finds that she has little left
emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to
reconcile their desires against the expectations and
institutions that seek to define them, they find
themselves speeding toward a future more violent and
senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape
unscathed.
In the tradition of Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life
of Oscar Wao and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah,
Speak No Evil explores what it means to be different in a
fundamentally conformist society and how that difference
plays out in our inner and outer struggles. It is a novel
about the power of words and self-identification, about
who gets to speak and who has the power to speak for
other people. As heart-wrenching and timely as his
breakout debut, Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala’s
second novel cuts to the core of our humanity and leaves
us reeling in its wake.
A 2018 Indie Next Pick | One of The Millions’ Most
Anticipated Books of 2018 | One of Bustle’s 35 Most
Anticipated Fiction Books Of 2018 | One of Paste's 25
Most Anticipated Books of 2018 | One of The Boston
Globe’s 25 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018
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