Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences.
Funmi is beautiful, brash, and determined; Enitan is homely and eager, seeking escape from her single mother's smothering and needy love; Zainab is elegant and reserved, raised by her father's first two wives after her mother's death in childbirth.
Their friendship is complicated but enduring, and over the course of the novel, the reader learns about their loves and losses.
How Funmi stole Zainab's boyfriend and became pregnant, only to have an abortion and lose the boyfriend to police violence. How Enitan was seduced by an American Peace Corps volunteer, the only one who ever really saw her, but is culturally so different from him--a Connecticut WASP--that raising their daughter together put them at odds.
How Zainab fell in love with her teacher, a friend of her father's, and ruptured her relationship with her father to have him.
Now, some thirty years later, the three women are reunited for the first time, in Lagos. The occasion: Funmi's daughter, Destiny, is getting married.
Enitan brings her American daughter, Remi. Zainab travels by bus, nervously leaving her ailing husband in the care of their son. Funmi, hosting the weekend with her wealthy husband, wants everything to go perfectly.
But as the big day approaches, it becomes clear that something is not right. As the novel builds powerfully, the complexities of the mothers' friendship--and the private wisdom each has earned--come to bear on a riveting, heartrending moment of decision.
Dele Weds Destiny is a sensational debut from a dazzling new voice in contemporary fiction.
My Review of Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro.
This book follows the lives of three best friends, Enitan, Funmi and Zainab. They are inseparable, till life happens, and they go their separate ways and after thirty years, they must reunite at Funmi's daughter's wedding.
I like the fact that the story is told through the perspective of the three friends. It helps us get an insight into their friendship and different lives.
Zainab, the beautiful Hausa girl from an academia family, has always wanted to be a playwright. Hence her studying Literature in the University. I think I like Zainab better than the other friends, because she's sincere and kindhearted.
Then there's Funmi, the show stealer of the trio. She knows what she wants and goes exactly for it. Having grown in a turbulent and toxic family, she has learned to pave her way for herself, to do the things she like and when she likes it.
She's also beautiful and smart. But Enitan is the less pretty and popular among the best friends. People mock her for her looks and to cap it up, she isn't as smart as Funmi or others. But she's warm hearted too and gentle.
I love their friendship, and the way the writer presented it. In a world that works overtime in pushing the narrative that women hate themselves, this book begs to differ.
It portrays this female friendship in a light that it has already transcended friendship, but now sisterhood. Even though they have their tough moments and complications, their friendship would stand the test of time.
After their university graduation, Enitan and Funmi getting their nursing certificates, and Zainab, in Literature, life changes for all of them at once.
Enitan elopes with the first man that makes a move at her, Charles to the United States. Funmi gets married to Yinka, a multi millionaire, and Zainab, to Ahmed, her father's friend.
For Enitan, she realizes that her marriage with Charles is no longer working and she wants out.
Her daughter, Remi, is not particularly fond of her, because she feels her mother's ideologies and beliefs stink and are outdated. Remi is a vegan, and a firm believer of world justice and gender equality.
For Zainab, she has four sons, and since her husband's stroke, she has turned into a full time care giver.
Funmi's life is different, in that he married a stinkingly rich business man, and can afford whatever she wants, but something is missing.
Her marriage lacks romance and love. And there's no understanding between her and her daughter, Destiny.
Because she grew up with a wicked stepmother who treated her like trash, she doesn't know how to raise her daughter properly.
So she thinks stuffing her with money is the best thing she can do for her. Funmi thinks she knows what's best for her only daughter, but how can she know if they don't even talk? If Destiny's opinions aren't considered?
When Dele proposes to Destiny, she doesn't know if that's what she wants. It feels forced and wrong, and everything is happening too fast. But she doesn't know how to talk to her mother about it. Destiny's character is shy and people pleasing.
She always does whatever would bring peace, because her opinions have never mattered. She has a great passion for photography, but her parents think becoming a medical doctor is what's best for her, and so, she's in one of the best medical schools abroad.
The only adult who listens to her is Zainab. Zainab advises her to take her photography seriously, because she's badass at it. And Zainab is the only person who has ever asked her what she truly wants, unlike other adults.
The story line gets confusing at some point, and I don't understand why this should be made to look like a book about Dele and Destiny, when in reality, it is just about the three friends. The book became boring to me at some point.
It's a wonderful debut book and I applaud the writer for creating such a gem, but I really didn't feel the ending of the book. I'd expected a more dramatic, and compelling twist. But it just ended like I'd envisioned it would. In all, it's a really great book, and I think y'all should check it out. I'll rate it as 3.9/5.
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