This debut novel by Shirlene Obuobi explores that time in your life when you must decide what you want, how to get it, and who you are, all while navigating love, friendship, and the realization that the path you’re traveling is going to be a bumpy ride.
Shirlene Obuobi’s bighearted debut novel is a genuine delight from start to finish. Her exploration of various types of love—platonic, familial and self—is particularly gratifying...A genuine delight from start to finish, On Rotation will appeal to fans of Rainbow Rowell, Talia Hibbert and Ali Hazelwood, and resonate with any reader who enjoys multicultural, multifaceted, inclusive love stories starring unapologetically strong and complex women.
As a third-year medical student, Ghanaian American narrator Angela Appiah practically wrote the textbook on firstborn-daughter expectations...At 25, Angie still has little room for failure under the watchful eyes of her parents, who expect nothing less than perfection...Author Obuobi, a physician and cartoonist, is in her wheelhouse chronicling the hectic, and sometimes solitary, life of a medical student...The often witty footnotes, frequently describing medical jargon or Ghanaian traditions, add an amusing flair to Angie’s personality, but the novel’s true strength shines in its more serious moments...Encounters with Ricky’s father, who’s overdosing on heroin, and a 15-year-old gunshot victim powerfully depict the heartbreaking realities that are commonplace in Angie's line of work and how her passion for helping people is where her true success lies...Guaranteed to make your heart beat faster.
This engrossing debut from ShirlyWhirl cartoonist and cardiology fellow Obuobi captures the life of a third-year Ghanaian American medical student in Chicago...Shortly after Angie Appiah’s first boyfriend, Frederick, leaves her, she meets graphic designer Ricky Gutiérrez...He’s handsome and thoughtful, and they connect over indie music and anime, but she’s not ready to let her guard down, even if he already has a girlfriend and just wants to be friends...Angie frets that a relationship might be a distraction from her goals and worries her overbearing parents wouldn’t accept Ricky for not being Ghanaian and for his lower economic status...Obuobi is particularly talented at articulating her characters’ difficult feelings (Angie’s take on Frederick’s breakup strategy: 'He’d been mean, when all he had to do was be honest'), as Angie tries to make the best decisions for her life...This effervescent story is a treat.
