A review by angelayoung
Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this novel. Onyi Nwabineli has a great talent: her ability to make me laugh one moment and cry the next is mistressful, and her subject matter is brave. From the very beginning we know we're about to read the story of a young widow who is not okay but Eve (the widow)'s courage and humour, her desperation and her bleak self-obsession, her deep love for her dead husband and our constant hope that she will (and fear that she won't) survive her crushing grief are full of emotional truth. Not to mention the beautiful and beautifully lucid language, the perfectly-judged interweaving of the past, when Eve's husband was alive, and the present when her grief often overwhelms her, as well as the undercurrent of her mother-in-law's racism are all woven through this wonderful first novel. I'm looking forward to Nwabineli's next.

Here's a short extract that made me laugh and cry:

Nobody tells you how the first time you laugh after a major bereavement will destroy you. You may not have even registered that you don't laugh anymore - another point on the itemised list of things grief steals from you.
When you do laugh, you will freeze and your blood will run a little colder and it will dawn on you that this simple act, an act you performed routinely in the Before, seems alien to you. Then you will stop almost immediately because why the hell should you be laughing when your husband is dead. Laughter should no longer exist. 
...
Quentin and I spent most of our time laughing. Once he had acclimatised to my brand of humour (slightly dark, dry, steeped in cynicism) and I'd made peace with his (corny, almost infantile; fart jokes and the like), we laughed our way through more than a decade together. We developed inside jokes like very couple does. Q's laugh was a rambunctious animal you ought to but can't bring yourself to control. I was obsessed with it. I will never again get to hear him unlash his laugh all over the house. He is the thief of my joy, but to laugh feels like a betrayal.