THE PRIVATE JOYS OF NNENNA MALONEY

Wow. Where to begin? This novel is outstanding.

Nnenna is a 16 year old girl who doesn’t know who her father is - all she knows is that he is from Nigeria. Her white, British mother can’t bring herself to talk about him. Her mother’s friend is gay but struggles to love and accept himself because his church taught him that he was an abomination. Her boyfriend isn’t that into her and she’s not sure if that bothers her. She loves French and wants to study in Paris when she’s older but the thought terrifies her mother. Her mother had a tough life and is struggling to move past it.

Weaving between all these characters and their lives are their relationships with one another. They are defined by a withholding of the truth; true feelings, true emotions, because, for various reasons, these characters don’t know how to be honest. With themselves or others.

A lot of this book rang true for me when it came to ideas about mental health and being true to oneself; how hard but necessary it is to live a happy life. Other areas of the book - including ideas about race and fitting in as a mixed race teenager who knows nothing about one side of her heritage - were enlightening, yet distressing. It isn’t right that people who grow up or live in this country cannot learn about their own histories, even though they have been shaped by colonisers who took and took and took, but never gave back. It isn’t right that these people are made to feel like the outsiders when they have as much right to this country as anyone else.

Nzelu touches on everything that I feel is important right now and he did so with ease and grace and humour. This is one hell of a funny book. I should definitely have said this earlier in the review, but it’s hard to know which is the most important point when it’s all so poignant!

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