Book Review | Yinka, Where is your Huzband?

I got Yinka, Where is your Huzband, from Netgalley in a reaction from thrillers I didn’t want to read. It sounded – different, and it certainly is! Lizzie Damilola Blackburn has done an excellent job with this book!

Yinka, Where is your Huzband?

by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

The Nigerian accent Dictionary
Huzband (pronounced auz-band) noun
1. A male partner in a marriage
E.g. Yinka’s younger sister, Kemi, is married to Uche 
2. A non-existent man in a non-existent marriage whose whereabouts is often asked of, usually by Nigerian mums and aunties to single British Nigerian women
E.g. So, Yinka. Tell me. Where is your huzband? Ah, ah. You’re thirty-one now!

Yinka wants to find love. The problem is she also has a mum who thinks she’s better qualified to find it for her. 

She also has too many aunties who frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, a preference for chicken and chips over traditional Nigerian food, and a bum she’s sure is far too small as a result. Oh, and the fact that she’s a thirty-one-year-old South-Londoner who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage is a bit of an obstacle too… 

When her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences Operation Find A Date for Rachel’s Wedding. Will Yinka find herself a huzband? And what if the thing she really needs is to find herself?

My Review

When I first started this book, I wondered whether I’d done the right thing. Yinka’s situation–large Nigerian family, aunties everywhere as all women of a certain age are aunties, and her attempts to live a normal ‘English’ life away from this cultural pressure, felt awkward at first.

But then I realised how much we had in common. The excruciating decisions over what to wear to a party. Always getting it wrong. The wondering what to say to a boy, and over-thinking every detail afterwards. The attempt to be a career girl…although I never said I’d get a promotion before I’d got it! And Peckham has changed since my acquaintance with it, although that doesn’t matter too much. It’s London, and London is…

This is beautifully written, with Yinka’s voice shining through. It has a style of its own, and the occasional interchange of text messages could be off-putting, but then again, also shows her inadequacy at expressing herself in a social situation. I really ached for her through so many situations – and how can anyone cope with such dreadful, interfering, family members? I’m so glad I missed out on that.

I’m not sure that the book delivers on Yinka actually finding herself, but maybe she does come to terms with her life by the end of it. And as for some reviewers who think she’s too old at 31 to be thinking the way she does about dating boys – trust me, it’s no different at 50!

Great fun, with a lot of life lessons inside.

Book Review | Yinka, Where is your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn 'beautifully written, with Yinka's voice shining through' multicultural London #netgalley #Yinka Click To Tweet