User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
What a drop-dead gorgeous debut!
This is a sensual love letter to our time before Covid. Where you could cook dinner for a stranger with the promise of something more. Where people could still traverse the globe, hopping from Lagos to Halifax and France. Quaint cafes invited close conversation over the steaming scent of tea and restaurants didn't reflexively evoke notions of failing hole-in-the-walls, roped off booths to maintain social distancing, and waitresses wearing facemasks and shields to take your order while you ponder viral loads and aerosol particles.
Here is catfish vindaloo, kimchi stew with pork belly, salted caramel chocolate cake, puff-puff, empanadas, overripe plantains, and egusi soup filling up your senses. This is musical prose that envelopes you. And much like the character Kambirinachi in the story, this is about wanting to live.
You see, Kambirinachi is an ogbanje - a spirit so tied to the other world they are born into ours only to die in moments, leaving anguish and tears in their wake. But Kambirinachi wants to live. She raises twin girls Kehinde and Taiye who are torn apart through horrifying trauma. After nearly a decade apart, the family finds their way home to Lagos.
From the small Canadian independent Arsenal Pulp Press, it's nonetheless an absolute crime this isn't getting broader acclaim. This book should be invoked when speaking of Yaa Gyasi, Bernardine Evaristo and dare I say, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Don't sleep on this one!
Rating: really liked it
Here is a description of one of the best kinds of books, which is also among the best reading experiences:
When you wake up on a weekend morning during which you don't have to really do anything, so you get your cup of coffee and get back in bed with your book, intending to read for only a little while, and instead you fall totally into the story and before you know it it's the afternoon and you've finished an excellent story and you're still in your pajamas and your coffee is cold.
This is an incredibly specific type of read to me, and one I only have probably once a year. I cherish it.
It requires the following:
- lovely writing
- characters I care about
- a story that grabs me but is also comforting
Obviously, since my finding even one of these traits in a book is a rare feat that requires a parade and/or block party to properly commemorate its triannual accomplishment, all three in the span of a few hundred pages takes the kind of specific magic called for in old-timey witches' potions. A protagonist I truly like is approximately as fantastical and hard to come by as newts' eyes, or powdered sea urchin, or whatever.
I did kind of have to manually stay in this, from time to time - ideally I look at a page at around 11 am and look up upon shutting the book what feels like a moment later to discover it's hours later, and in this case I had to choose to stay with this, not consistently carried away by it.
So it's a four star miracle. But a miracle all the same.
Bottom line: I already feel nostalgic for this reading experience. In case that wasn't abundantly clear.
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pre-reviewholy moley.
i'm glad i waited to read a print copy. the audiobook could not do this story justice.
review to come / 4 stars
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currently-reading updateslearning my lesson
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taking this off my currently reading because i just realized the audiobook was playing for approximately one hour and i was not even slightly listening.
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tbr reviewi think i have a crush on this cover
Rating: really liked it
Brilliant does not begin to cover this gorgeously written debut novel… WOW! Life is an ambivalent lover. One moment, you are everything and life wants to consume entirely. The next moment, you are an insignificant speck of nothing. Meaningless. Butter, Honey Pig Bread is told from the perspective of the mother, Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. The story opens up with Kambirinachi who believes she is an Oghanje- a spirit that plagues women by being born and dying during childhood. This spirit keeps coming back and the woman is faces with a series of dead children. Kambirinachi finally decides to end the haunting by staying alive to be with her human family… but what is the price she will pay to her spirit family who she abandoned?
Kambirinachi decision seem to be paying off, she went to school, studied and met her husband who is a man who worships her. Pretty soon they have twin daughters- Kehinde and Taiye. Fast forward ten years later she is suffers from bouts of sickness. Her daughters haven’t spoken to each other in over 12 years because of a traumatic incident that happened when they were younger.
Kehinde, cut all ties from her family, she barely calls home. She moved to Canada to study to become an artist, there she met and fell in love. After marrying her husband, she felt it was time to return home, even though she knows she will have to actually talk to her twin sister she’s been avoiding for years. After years of being away from Nigeria her home and her family, is she ready to explore that trauma?
Taiye is still reeling from being cut off by her sister. She tries to fill that void through traveling, having causal relationships with women. She misses her sister and spends time writing letters she doesn’t intend on posting. Loneliness follows her, everywhere she goes- UK, Europe and Canada. She finally discover passion for food and cooking, enrols in a programme to teach her. She is finally getting her life together when she meets a woman who plunging. She moves back to Nigeria to lick her wounds, take care of her mother and wait for her sister’s return.
What a beautifully written novel. It spans years of trauma, we are taken to different countries as these women trying to find their way back home. Themes of friendship, spirituality, religion, queer love, faith, family and food is expertly explored. I finished this book with an appetite for all the Nigerian food spoken about in the book.
I cannot believe this is a debut novel because the writing is gorgeous. Not a single word was out of place. You felt immersed in the narration and the story. I love one nuanced the relationships were, you feel for the people, their loneliness was palatable. The writer does a lot of showing in telling this story and it was truly great to witness.
I want EVERYONE to read this book! A book I won’t soon forget.
Rating: really liked it
What a delicious, beautiful book this is. Three Nigerian women, a mother and her twin daughters, have drifted apart as adults as a result of one of the girls being sexually assaulted in childhood. The story goes back and forth from the past to the present when they have reunited in Lagos. It's a heartbreaking story in many parts (miscarriage, suicide, and the death of a parent by homicide also feature in the book) but it is somehow not a dark story at all, but one full of life and hope.
The characters are just wonderful, fully fleshed out. I especially loved to see them in their different relationships, as well as in different places: Lagos, London, Montreal, and Halifax. Taiye is a particular kind of messy, hedonistic lesbian character who felt so deeply real. Her queer Black/Nigerian friendship with Timi was one of my favourite parts of the book. Kehinde's relationship with her first boyfriend also stunned me in its authenticity and heart.
And then there's their mom, Kambirinachi, who is an Ogbanje, a spirit who is not supposed to linger long in a human body, but who falls in love with being alive at great cost to herself and her loved ones. I find it fascinating to learn about different cultural stories that explain the toughest stuff of life that is inexplicable (like miscarriage, death of a child, suicide).
And the food!! God this book made me so hungry. Taiye loves food and eventually becomes a chef, but Kehinde's sections also involve a lot of food as she works at a restaurant in Montreal.
To top it all off, Ekwuyasi's writing is just beautiful. Here is of my favourite passages from Kambirinachi:
"Life is an ambivalent lover. One moment, you are everything and life wants to consume you entirely. The next moment, you are an insignificant speck of nothing. Meaningless.
But I am not insane. Imagine this:
You are made unbound, birthed from everything glorious and fermented and fertile and free. Unbound. You visit this binding, this flesh cage. It's sacred and robust but a cage nonetheless. You visit because it's your nature."
This is just an incredible book. It made me cry. And it's only Francesca Ekwuyasi's first. I am so excited to see what she does next!
Rating: really liked it
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“Hold it gently, this hungry beast that is your heart.”
Butter Honey Pig Bread explores the complex relationship two sisters who were once close but have become estranged as adults. Their mother, Kambirinachi, believes that she is an Ogbanje, a malevolent spirit who haunts mothers by 'coming' and 'going' (usually the child dies in childhood). After being born and dying a few times Kambirinachi decides to remain in the 'earthly' realm and goes on to become a wife and mother to twin girls, Kehinde and Taiye. After a horrific event drives the twins apart they embark on separate journeys. Years later, Taiye has moved back Lagos and now lives with Kambirinachi. When Kehinde and her husband come to visit them, the twins are forced to confront the reasons why they grew apart.
“Our relationship has always struggled against our twinness.”
Through alternating chapters Francesca Ekwuyasi recounts Kambirinachi, Kehinde, and Taiye's lives, from their childhoods until the present. The snapshots into Kehinde and Taiye's youth and early adulthood are vividly rendered as they capture the places and people around them. Regardless of where the story was set—England, France, Canada, Nigeria—the setting was more than just a backdrop. Ekwuyasi conveys the Kehinde and Taiye's loneliness as well as the cultural clash they experience once they move to other countries. The relationships and conversations they have with their friends, colleagues, peers, and lovers always rung true to life. Throughout the course of the novel Ekwuyasi touches on numerous interesting and topical topics, on art, intersectionality, sexuality, feminism, racism, and identity. The twins have been shaped by trauma they experienced as children, trauma they both try to overcome in not always successful ways. They are also grieving for one another. Their severed bond has clearly left a mark on them, so that even when they begin into their new lives loneliness weighs them down.
I just loved how realistic this story was. Ekwuyasi's characters are authentic and fleshed out, their motivations and personalities are nuanced, the relationship between the twins is rendered with poignancy and empathy. By recounting the time they spent apart Ekwuyasi provides each sister with solid pasts, that is, real histories. With lucidity and insight Ekwuyasi writes of platonic and romantic love—queer love especially—of motherhood, of different forms of faith, of growing up, of trying to acclimatise to a new culture, of reconciliation, and of guilt.
As the title itself suggests, food is key in this novel. There are many scenes that feature characters cooking and eating. At times a certain dish or ingredient leads to a certain memory. These semingly quotidian scenes were really enjoyable to read and often they revealed more of a character or a certain relationship. Plus, Ekwuyasi serves us with some mouth-watering descriptions (my advice: do not read this novel on an empty stomach!).
Kambirinachi's chapters perhaps didn't always feel very cohesive. Whereas the twins' chapters are grounded in realism, Kambirinachi's ones foray into the magical realism. While we do learn in her chapters why Kambirinachi wasn't a very present mother I think that this came across already in the twins' chapters. Her perspective didn't add a lot to the overall narrative, and perhaps, I would have loved this novel even more if it had remained focused on the twins and not Kambirinachi. Nevertheless, I did appreciate Ekwuyasi prose in her chapters. It had a rhythmic quality that resulted in some great storytelling.
“Something you must know is that Kambirinachi and Death were no strangers—no, but certainly not friends, either.”
Butter Honey Pig Bread is a touching debut by a clearly talented writer. If you enjoy authors such as Maame Blue and Zaina Arafat, you should definitely pick this one up.
Rating: really liked it
Lovely, beautifully written story of a Nigerian woman and her twin daughters. We shuttle back and forth across decades and continents and relationships, building up a web of connections made through family and sex and food and pain into a rather wonderful whole. Very much about love of all kinds (queer, platonic, familial, parental, temporary), and how much it can hurt. Terrific read.
Rating: really liked it
Book 163 of 2021
Trigger warnings for fertility issues, miscarriage, rape of a minor, vivid descriptions of food and unhealthy eating habits, body hate, and internalized fatphobia.
Chef's kiss is such an appropriate pun-intented reaction to this book. This is a book that heavily features food, and food is used a plot device in so many ways.
A few minutes in and I just knew this would be one of those books I'd kick myself for not reading earlier. Bookstagram Nigeria's attention was brought to this book a while back by @lipglossmaffia and since then lots of people have read it and sung its praises. It's worth all the hype and then some.
To avoid repeating elements of the blurb over and over, I'll just dive into elements of this book I loved. There were soooo many, let's get into it.
*The writing: The authors writing is so lyrical and beautiful and I was sucked in from the very start. She just has a way with words.
*Multi generational perfection: I'm a sucker for a perfectly written multi generational story, because I love the see the growth or decay of a family over time. How have the decisions of the parents affected the children, and vice versa?
*Generational trauma: This ties in heavily with the first element, and it was very present in this book. Abandonment of sorts and loss flow within this family just like their blood does.
*Loss and grief: So much loss and grief within the pages of this book, so brace yourselves for that. I love how it was handled by the author and how it just wasn't one form like loss caused by death or loss of a family member. You could just as well lose friends, lose parts of yourself, and live a life mourning someone who's still alive
*Well-done time jumps and multi POVs: Multiple POVs and ensemble cast books have my heart. The author's skill shone in how she did swift time jumps that didn't leave me dazed or confused about when or where I was while reading.
*Family, sisterhood, and motherhood: These three elements reverberated through every part of this book, as Kambirinachi and here children were the pillars of this book. The author explored their relationships as a trifecta, each girl's relationship with her mother, and then with each other. Extended family relationships and the complicated nature of them were also explored.
*Found family: Found family is one of my fave tropes and I love how it woven into Taiye's story.
*Queer rep: This book had so much diversity not only in terms of diversity, but in terms of queer representation. Taiye is a lesbian, Smart is a queer character, and Timi is gay. Over the course of the book there are a number of closeted characters as well.
I love how the title is basically the parts of the book listed out and ugh I love how those parts were worked into the story, and somehow all through Taiye.
The audiobook narration was done by Amaka Umeh and she was wonderful at it. I usually prefer ensemble cast audiobooks to have full cast narrators, but the narrator was able to embody these three women well.
This is a book everyone should read!
Rating: really liked it
If I could give this book 10 stars, I would🥰
FULL REVIEW HERE https://www.instagram.com/p/CMcE-LFgU...
Rating: really liked it
A moving and vivid debut about a rift between two sisters. I start a lot of debut novels and I do not finish most of them. I ask a lot of books and you can't really tell which ones will deliver so I try to get a broad swath of them and hope the good ones will hook me. It took just a little bit of time for this book to get its hooks in me. But it was easy to keep turning pages and soon I was absolutely in its thrall.
The two stories of Taiye and Kehinde feel so much like real people and real life, sometimes I forget how many books seem to have us in a vague not-quite-real world that we all just accept, but sometimes they are so true that it hits in a totally different way and this was one of those books for me. The sisters are presented to us in juxtaposition but as we go along we see just how much their estrangement has cost them, how much they need each other, and we become incredibly invested in helping them find comfort and care in each other again.
The third part of the book follows the twins' mother, Kambirinachi, but this is its weak link. She is an ogbanje, a spirit that haunts families with miscarriages, stillbirths, and children who die before adulthood. But Kambi has chosen to live a full life and has her own rift between who she really is and what she has chosen to be. It is an interesting story, but it feels at such a disconnect from the rest of the book. Much of this is purposeful, Kambi's detachment from her daughters informs much of what happens to them, but the sisters seem to see their mother's absence as a foregone conclusion, while their removal from each other feels more like an active wound. The one story feels passive while the other is full of movement and the discrepancy makes the book a bit uneven, though it was never to the extent that it brought down the experience for me. I was just anxious to get back to the twins' story.
The sisters' romantic relationships in particular feel so fully drawn and real. Taiye in particular gets to be a total lesbian mess in a way that will be relatable for many queer readers.
This is one to put on your list not to miss this year.
Note: there are several difficult topics in this book depicted on the page, including suicide, miscarriage, and rape of a child.
Rating: really liked it
This exudes warmth; every character (even the side ones) is thought out and added to the narrative.
Following three perspectives: The mother Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye, their childhood all the way to adulthood, and all the complications that come with being alive. Linked together with otherworldly magic that is subtle but elevates the story. I found myself swayed with all sorts of feelings and connected so strongly with each character, particularly Taiye (the chef) dabbles in delicious recipes, and the way Francesca captures the process of cooking and Taiye's connection with it was delightful.
One of the best stories I've read so far this year :)
Rating: really liked it
3.75 Stars.
It’s hard for me to rate this because I think it’s a good book and I did like it a lot but I had “buts…”. I thought it was fabulously well-written in terms of the language. Admittedly, this was a “Bookstagram made me do it” pick. I didn’t read the synopsis and yearn to check it out. But so many bookish social media friends had raved about it so I couldn’t be left out. Besides the title had me intrigued and I was promised there would be food.
The premise of this novel is that Kambirinachi, mother of Taiye and Kehinde, is an Ogbanje, who has struggled since birth to stay tethered to the world as a human being. Perhaps it is as a result of this, that her life has been assaulted by tragedy at every turn, her “kin” or other-worldly spirits using the experiences to taunt her back to the spirit world. Because of this, Kambirinachi is a somewhat unavailable mother to Taiye and Kehinde, despite her best intentions, leaving them vulnerable to a devastation that finally tears the family apart. Now for the first time in years the family is gathered again in Lagos and this might be their one chance to discover if healing is possible.
I liked this book and I can tell why so many people love it. The writing and use of language is lovely and evocative, the experiences are realistic and recognizable to the Nigerian experience. The author captured the swallowed pain and silence of a family who has gone through trauma so well and as for the way she writes about food, it’s absolutely delicious and visceral- you smell the smells and taste her words. The story is told by 3 different narrators telling the story interchangeably from both past and future. It’s a testament to the author’s skill that it’s pretty straightforward to keep the story straight. And even more testament to the author’s brilliance how she pieces together the commonality of the protagonists’ experiences around butter, honey, pig or bread. How she jigsaw puzzle fits overlapping experiences at different times to fit into a solid whole without rehashing old tales we already know. In this way, the author crafted a cohesive story that was well put together in spite of all moving parts of different protagonists, different character perspectives , and different timelines.
For me, this wavered between 3 stars and 5 stars. The food for certain, was the 5 stars. Every single time food was on the page, every time the author mentioned a high quality butter, or a high grade lard, or mentioned roasting spices in rich coconut oil, or talked about Nigerian raw honey in such luxurious language, or described the decadance of the pig and the spicy heat of suya or talked about the varieties of bread and the yeasty doughy texture of Nigerian bread! How can anyone not grade this 5 stars for the food alone! The author’s love and admiration for food came out to shine in this book and that was my favourite part of this novel. The author would mire you in trauma and grief and then comfort feed you so your belly would be as full as your heart and the reading less painful for that.
For me, the 3-star rating hovered through large swathes of the middle of the book. This starts off so well and so strongly. The first 20% of the book, I was consumed by the story, entranced by the characters. But then it kind of became very much Taiye’s story, which was fine. I liked Taiye. But I kept wanting more. I wanted more of a balance in the stories. If this was Taiye’s book, that would be fine, but we got just enough of Kehinde and Kambirinachi that I felt like surely, they deserved as much care and intention as Taiye got. I feel like we dwelled A LOT in Taiye’s varied expressions of trauma but only sort of skimmed the surface of Kehinde and to a lesser extent, Kambirinachi. And sure it could just be that Kambirinachi lived so much in her head that there wasn’t much story for her out of it that couldn’t be captured in “her kin was calling her,” and fine, maybe Kehinde, was just a million times more boring and straight-laced than Taiye and had no friends or story to carry more plot with her, maybe that’s why this felt a lot like a book about Taiye’s self-destruction stemming from family trauma, rather than a book about all 3, where I was actively curious about all 3. There’s a point in the novel where Taiye says she’s tired of her own BS and at that point in the novel, perhaps that was intentioned by the author, because I was pretty sick of Taiye as well by then. I mean at that point I had gotten the point of why she was self-destructive, how it manifested and why. And it was a repeatedly destructive cycle that kind of dragged around in the middle portion of the book. And with having 3 protagonists, I don’t think this was a book that needed to drag at all, given how quickly (and somewhat rushed) the ending was. If this was to be a story about healing, for me it needed a little more time on the pages to marinate. More steps, more coverage, more scenes. That part of the story felt a little last gasp to me and I would have liked to see more build towards the resolution, it was kind of a smash-bang, one-and-done sort of drive to the finish that felt kind of inconsistent with the indulgence with which the rest of the story had been told.
This is only the second book I’ve read featuring an Ogbanje woman and the psychological, mental and emotional traumas associated with that existence. In that sense, this is similar to Freshwater (by Akwaeke Emezi) but that’s about where the similarities end. Both books are about Ogbanje but this book deserves its own separate moment because its approach and sensibility and style are pretty different even if the themes are quite similar. This book examines generational trauma, abandonment, child abuse, difficult mother-daughter relationships, sexuality, sexual assault and abuse, homophobia (and indeed internalized homophobia), fatphobia (along with eating disorders), religion, love, trauma, family and loss in the most heartbreaking ways. If there is any trauma you have that could be triggering, tread carefully in approaching this book. It is beautifully written but would be unrelentingly sad if not that the author always pops up with the most delicious food so that your eyes can feast your sorrows away, at least till you have to eat the next wave of pain with the characters.
I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a really meaningful and heartbreaking story of mothers and daughters and spirits, with a Nigerian queer protagonist and lots and lots of yummy food. There are even loose recipes in the prose if that sweetens the pot (it should, they’re worth checking out). Prepare your heart for breakage, but definitely check this out.
Rating: really liked it
You know when a book is just good! From start to stop just a great reading experience? That’s what I felt with this debut by Francesca Ekwuyasi! What a solidly well written, lyrical and sensuous novel. The plotting was so well done for most of the book - I found myself anxious turning the page to see what happens next.
The character work was so well done - especially with Taiye. I found myself drawn to her especially. There was something about how open and vulnerable she was that pulled me in - more so than with Kehinde; which surprised me because I think I have more in common with Kehinde.
The queer representation in this book was so skillfully woven into the rest of the narrative. I loved that much of Taiye’s ‘baggage’ had nothing to do with her queerness - her being gay was just a thing that was. And yet through Timmy, Ekwuyasi was able to also highlight the challenges and family induced trauma that queer Black people experience. Which was for me such a great use of secondary characters.
The dynamic between Kehinde and Taiye was also an element that was so well written. You could feel the disconnect between them and how unmoored they both were without each other. I think Taiye especially struggled with their separation - and the guilt she felt. It’s interesting to see how memory and the act if remembering and grief are such a central theme - as well as the complexities of mother-daughter relationships so well. I think those theme played out really strongly - and were unpacked well by the writer.
My only issue or critique or whatever is that there was no substantial reckoning at the end. I really wanted to see Kehinde be given more space to unpack what happened - especially as it pertains to Kambirinachi. It felt like the section that was actually dedicated to that encounter was really rushed.
Lastly - can I just say that I love Farouq and Salome 😍. I love them for Kehinde and Taiye respectively.
Rating: really liked it
Although this deals with difficult subject matter, it feels hopeful. There are plenty of fractured relationships here, but there are also supportive, kind, gentle relationships with healthy communication that makes me swoon. There’s also, unsurprisingly, a food theme. Each of the foods in the title shows up repeatedly, with slightly different meanings: a bee hive is a life-altering outing, a secret indulgence, or a staple of the household. Characters cook for each other when they don’t have the words to explain themselves
I highly recommend
Butter Honey Pig Bread for fans of literary fiction, queer books, food writing, and anyone who wants a good story.
Full review is at the Lesbrary.
Rating: really liked it
Well, I seem to be in the minority here. The writing was fine, but the story did not capture me. Even though it moved through several continents, and the women were living their lives, not much seemed to be happening that was of interest to me.
The mother's story was disjointed from that of her daughters, and by the end I was skimming through her sections.
My favourite parts were the letters written from Taiye to her sister.
Rating: really liked it
I looved this book so much. I just wanted to luxuriate in the writing of this book forever
Watch my full review: https://youtu.be/4-nooUIpKu0
