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Summary and Reviews of Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

Someday, Maybe

A Novel

by Onyi Nwabineli
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  • Critics' Consensus:
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  • First Published:
  • Nov 1, 2022, 352 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2024, 384 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Someday, Maybe is a stunning, witty debut novel about a young woman's emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.

Here are three things you should know about my husband:

  1. He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.
  2. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because…
  3. On New Year's Eve, he killed himself.

And here is one thing you should know about me: I found him.

Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.

PROLOGUE

Around the time my husband was dying, I was chipping ice from the freezer in search of the ice cube tray wedged in the back. But only because I was taking a break from filling his voice mail with recriminations about his failure to communicate his whereabouts. The memory of this along with countless other things would weave together the tapestry of blame I laid upon myself in the days and weeks after his death.

Therefore, in the spirit of continued honesty, here are three things you should know about my husband:

  1. He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.
  2. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because...
  3. On New Year's Eve, he killed himself.

And here is one thing you should know about me:

  1. I found him.

Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.



Home

1

I read somewhere once that going through a breakup is like experiencing the death of a partner. They called it a "kind of bereavement."...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. Eve and Quentin meet at ages nineteen and twenty. Do you think their age and lack of romantic experience has any bearing on their relationship dynamic? If so, in what ways?
  2. The story begins after Quentin's suicide. Does knowing that he is already dead, and knowing how he died, shape the reading experience or colour your perception of him in any way?
  3. What significance, if any, do you believe Quentin's upbringing and background have on his relationship with Eve and her family, and his inability to voice his struggles?
  4. How do you interpret the various manifestations of Eve's grief? When, if at all, do you feel the healing process begins for her?
  5. Eve is from a Nigerian (Igbo) background. How do you think her culture influences how she and her...
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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

If you have ever experienced an epic loss, the pain in this story may be retraumatizing. Eve schleps sorrow around, dragging it everywhere. As I empathized with her, a Virginia Woolf quote came to mind, the one about how nothing has happened until it's been recorded. Someday, Maybe is a sterling recording of grief and loss, of course, but also of how the white-affluent other the brown. How the wealthy, however they exercise power in other ways, lack power over their children's deaths. This imbalance gives the story its beautiful heft and offers a much-needed perspective on what suicide is apart from the myth. And what suicide frankly is not...continued

Full Review Members Only (1185 words)

(Reviewed by Valerie Morales).

Media Reviews

BuzzFeed
If you are someone who gravitates toward emotional gut punch reads, allow me to introduce you to this spectacular debut…

Booklist (starred review)
Nwabineli's exceptional debut is a heartfelt and moving portrayal of grief and recovery in all its messiness…This is an excellent choice for book clubs and for readers who enjoy thought-provoking, deeply emotional fiction.

Kirkus Reviews
Though some readers may find the book unrelenting, Nwabineli's stunning insight and prose offer a true and honest portrayal of grief as vast, unending, and ever changing; she also meditates on themes of forgiveness, hope, and the endless love of family and friends. Nwabineli's debut is deeply moving, tender, and, against all odds, funny.

Publishers Weekly
Nwabineli debuts with a powerful tale of a London widow whose photographer husband died by suicide...Nwabineli credibly portrays Eve's gut-deep grief and her reckoning with the fact that she'll never know what darkness lay within her partner's thoughts. The author also skillfully sets up a series of surprising turns. The genuine displays of emotion and sharp narrative will keep readers turning the pages.

Author Blurb Bolu Babalola, internationally bestselling author of Honey and Spice
A masterfully woven exposition on love and loss, of the undoing of us, of what it takes to heal. Nwabineli is magic with words, and manages to be at turns bitingly funny and heart-breakingly gutting. A book that acknowledges despair whilst encouraging hope.

Author Blurb Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström, internationally bestselling author of In Every Mirror She's Black
Incisive and witty, this deeply moving debut about the many faces of grief took me on an oscillating journey of emotions. I couldn't put it down. Each richly developed character leaps off the page with vivid dimension through Onyi's razor-sharp voice. Fresh and original contemporary fiction from the Diaspora I've long yearned for.

Reader Reviews

Adeline

Thought provoking, Emotional
Onyi Nwabineli’s "Someday, Maybe" is an excellent book for those who have experienced loss or enjoy books that are emotional and thought-provoking. I picked this book up in the airport because the cover was appealing to me. Reading the inside of the ...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



The Summerland Disaster on the Isle of Man

Photograph taken from a distance of the burnt-out remains of the Summerland complex, after it was destroyed by a fire in August 1973 In the novel Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli, photographer Quentin Morrow was scheduled to go on a photography retreat on the Isle of Man before his death. In the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is an island with its own parliament, customs, history and a population of over 80,000. While technically a Crown Dependency (owned by the British Crown), it is a self-governing territory and not part of the United Kingdom. Approximately equidistant from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England, its 221 square miles include mountains, grasslands, farmlands and rugged coastline. When Quentin's wife Eve attends the retreat on the island in his absence, she reminisces about visiting a favorite spot called Summerland, and recalls learning ...

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Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

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