I am more than excited to be able to read this entertaining beautifully written novel, when it got to me, I was rather sceptical. I thought it would be a "typical love story"; someone badly in love, that spends most of the time lost in thought and day dreaming. You know those clichéd romance novels. No offence. However, "Nothing Comes Close" is different. It is an irresistible page-turner, which narrates the story of young Nigerian women based in UK and their emotional lives.
The beginning of the novel was somewhat similar to
Chike Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street. At least, I had the feeling. Intimate Nigerian girl friends, throwing party, meeting people, they all seemed to be happy and like a bolt from the blue one of them died, and the course of their lives changed. Nevertheless, the similarities between these two books ends there.
"Nothing Comes Close" is about Lola, Funmi, Maureen, Titi and Temmy. University graduates with descent jobs, struggling to balance their professional and personal lives in a society where nobody is who they seem to be. Finally, Lola met Wole. She decided to be open-hearted and love him selflessly inspite of her suspicions over his true personality. The story was narrated only from Lola and Wole's point of view, which makes it easy to follow. Equally important, the language and vocabulary used were clear.
Among Lola's friend, one was dating a married man, the other found it difficult to stick to a relationship. Another had her parents talking her into getting an MBA whereas she was aspiring to be a fashion designer and the last one gave her relationship a pause, in that her "future mother-in-law" did not approve of her.
Tolulope way of writing is simple, straightforward, engaging and, hence, an uncomplicated read. The description of the characters are so genuine that I felt connected to them. Besides, this novel is not just about a simple love story per se, it is a story full of intrigue that evolves in a simple enjoyable manner, and kept me on the edge of my seat.
In my opinion, the novel sort of had a cliffhanger ending, for that reason, I am looking forward to seeing how Tolulope would develop the story in the future. Hopefully, I would also get to read her previous novel "In My Dream It Was Simpler" co-written with some other writers, since the characters in "Nothing Comes Close" were taken from it.
Anyone can read this novel; even though, I would recommend it to adults from twenty-five years old and above.
.JPG)