u/TheBookGorilla

| Plot | Leave Your Mess At Home |

This covers the 4 Longe siblings Sola, Anjola, Ola and Karen and their parents. The kids are all first generation immigrants from Nigeria. Their parents trying to assimilate to America after immigrating from Nigeria. The story picks up with sola being a semi famous influencer, but being kicked out of the house by her mother for posting racy pictures, meanwhile Anjola is premed, Karen is figuring things out and Ola is a finance manager. The story follows their journey finding out that their childhood is greatly impacted by their controlling mother. After coming to grips with a family tragedy, they’re all forced to reconcile their complicated childhood. Especially Sola who has been their mother’s proverbial bogeyman for the majority of her life. The question is will they ever be able to repair their relationship or is it too late?

Smooth like butter this was an amazing read so many emotions. What a good performance.

| Review | Leave Your Mess At Home | 5/5🍌|

This was definitely a hard read, so many emotions to unpack. I’m dealing with a traditional Nigerian household. I will say I had to put the book down a few times because reading the way that sola mother. Treated her maid my blood boil obviously it deals with different generations, cultural identity fitting within the black community. Systemic racism, LGBTQ. This was so rich and vibrant. The prose was amazing. This woman can write her ass off. It’s not for the fainted heart. It really makes you question the world and each of the characters was flawed. Yet they brought such colors to the world. This was one of the best books of the year I’ve read yet and for being a debut novel, it was astoundingly deep. And does what all art should do makes you question things makes you see things from a viewpoint that may not be attainable. Shows you culture and how things aren’t as different as you may think trying to live up to your parents expectations. I would highly highly recommend this book.

I Banana Rating system |

1 🍌| Spoiled

2 🍌| Mushy

3 🍌| Average

4 🍌| Sweet

5 🍌| Perfectly Ripe

| Plot | Confessions Of An Innocent man |

Rafael Zhettah is a small time chef in a small town in Texas. His life changes for the better when he meets a billionaire real estate magnet woman and they fall in love. Soon his world falls apart when she’s mysteriously and brutally killed. Now he’s in a fight for his life as he tries to prove that, though their relationship wasn’t a conventional one that he actually did love her. Unfortunately, he sentenced and put on death row, but refuses to give up hope as he tries to navigate the legal system and prove his innocence.

He did a pretty good job. I’ll say that it was incredibly interesting. There wasn’t a lot of range to his voice, but it was a soothing voice, and I did enjoy his performance.

| Review | Confessions Of An Innocent man | 4/5🍌|

This was incredibly fascinating. I really thoroughly enjoyed this book. The only reason it didn’t get a five was because the book did fall apart a little bit towards the end. It went in a completely different direction than I thought it was going, and while sometimes that can be good. It made it a lot more hard to believe. But if nothing else, this was so much packed into the story from systemic racism to the foils of the justice system. I couldn’t put this book down and while it did have his flaws, I would highly recommend reading this.