Did you enjoy His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie, the September 2022 selection for the Facebook Book Club? Check out some other books featuring strong women in conflict-filled relationships then head over to the group to find out what October’s book will be and join in on our community conversations.
Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Three generations of Indian mothers and daughters discover their greatest source of strength in one another, from a baker’s daughter who dreams of an impossible education, to the daughter who confronts her culture and independence in America, to the granddaughter who learns indelible lessons about freedom and heartbreak.
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Despite cultural pressures for her husband to take a second wife, Yejide trusts that Akin would never do so… until, after four years of failing to conceive a child, he does. Under constant scrutiny to conceive and keeping secrets from one other, the couple struggles while their marriage falters and the country’s political system crumbles. Alternating chapters told from each characters’ perspective capture both the agony of would-be parents struggling with infertility, and the broader turmoil in Nigeria during the late 1980s.
The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy by Paulina Niketche
After twenty years of marriage, Rami discovers that her husband has been living a double–or rather, a quintuple–life. Tony, a senior police officer in Maputo, has apparently been supporting four other families for many years. After Tony is forced to marry the four other women–as well as an additional lover–according to polygamist custom, the rival lovers join together to declare their voices and demand their rights. In this brilliantly funny and feverishly scathing critique, a major work from Mozambique’s first published female novelist, Paulina Chiziane explores her country’s traditional culture, its values and hypocrisy, and the subjection of women the world over.
Dominicana by Angie Cruz
Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving from the Dominican countryside to America. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana becomes a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family. In bright, musical prose that reflects the energy of New York City, Angie Cruz’s Dominicana is a vital portrait of the immigrant experience and the timeless coming-of-age story of a young woman finding her voice in the world.
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of the season. When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn’t know is that Nick’s family home happens to look like a palace, that she’ll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia’s most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back.
Grown-Up Pose by Sonya Lalli
Telling her conservative Indian parents that she was separating from her husband was the hardest thing Anu Desai has ever done – and she’s still dealing with the fallout. She has a young daughter to raise and a loud, opinionated family to appease. And when she invests all of her savings into running her own yoga studio, the feelings of irresponsibility send Anu reeling. She’ll be forced to look inside herself to become the strong, independent woman she’s never had the chance to be – the kind of woman who would be proud to have her daughter follow in her footsteps.
