STAY WITH ME by Ayobami Adebayo

Wow, another exquisite beautiful story, so unbearably sad. Set against the backdrop of civil unrest in Nigeria in 1985, Akin and Yejide are a young couple who met while at university. They have now been married for four years, and Yejide has not yet produced the expected first child. Having already agreed that Akin was never going to take a second wife as is the norm, Yejide is horrified and distraught to one day find her in laws marching up to the house with a beautiful young second wife for her husband.

As one would expect, life becomes very complicated for the three marrieds. Yejide knows she now has to get pregnant, and fast to keep this new wife away from her husband's bed. Such a drastic decision leads to great complications, sorrow, and betrayal. Life can be a complicated web that we unwittingly weave for ourselves, and when we are doing it to protect the ones we love, the complexities and deceits are greater with consequences that never seem to end.

Simply and beautifully written, this is a story of great love, hope, and battling against the never ending and awful pressure of being in a society where you are a failure until you have produced a child, preferably a boy. The chapters are told alternately by Akin and Yejide, giving both a husband and wife perspective of the marriage, their intimacy and the pressures from his family. Not a big book, but it does not need to be.