In this debut novel, Yinka's Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom while her friends are busy marrying off and pressuring career-oriented Yinka to attend to her romantic life. When Yinka gets laid off from her high-powered job, she finds herself in a mad dash to find employment as well as a date to her friend's wedding.
If Lizzie Damilola Blackburn's debut novel, Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?, was to become a TV sitcom, it could run episode after episode, season after season, without losing steam on story material. Cheeky and entertaining, the novel, which spans just six months in the chaotic life of its British-Nigerian protagonist Yinka, packs in a whole lot of cross-cultural drama and social commentary with an easy-going, conversational style. Add romantic and professional mishaps, and complicated relationships among four Black women living in England, two of whom are Yinka's cousins, and you have the makings of comedic gold. Don't be fooled by the novel's slow, somewhat clunky start ... Blackburn offers insight into the way colorism and certain societal preferences for hair textures can affect women with darker skin and curlier hair ... Perhaps one mark of a successful book, however crammed, is if the reader still wishes to know more about what happens in the main character's life after a book ends—that is, as the story moves off the page. We may have to wait for that sitcom starring Blackburn's Yinka.
Yinka, Where is Your Huzband is more than a book about a woman looking for a man. It addresses themes such as female friendships, Black beauty standards and religion. This is not a romance novel, unless the journey to self-love qualifies.
... a sensitive, humorous chronicle of a young woman's journey of self-discovery ... This universal story of a young woman coming into her own contains many elements of Nigerian culture ... Readers who like the novels of Marian Keyes and Cecelia Ahern will find much to enjoy here.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
