No Longer At Ease ★★★★☆

No Longer At Ease (Click Here To Buy)

★★★★☆

No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe is a fiction book about a young man in Nigeria.

I got this book out of a free little library. This is the second book in The African Trilogy. I have read Things Fall Apart and plan to read the last book, Arrow of God.

Obi Okonkwo was selected by his village to go and get an education in England so that he may become a lawyer to help them protect their land from white people. While he's there he decides he wants to study English instead. When he returns to Nigeria, he gets a job working in Lagos. After being away from his village and being abroad, Obi finds it hard to stick to his traditions. The money he was supposed to be sending back is harder to get by and easier to spend; the woman he falls in love with is from a tribe that his family would never allow him to marry; it takes longer for him to return home for visits. Obi sinks deeper into both financial and emotional despair until he feels he can go no lower and begins accepting bribes at his job until he gets caught.

I liked this book more than Achebe's first book. It addresses the same themes of changing times and the clash of cultures but in a completely new way. Looking forward to reading the last book. I can see how Achebe's work is monumental in depicting the colonization of Nigeria. It also does a great job of showing how a character can get broken down until he finds himself committing acts he had thought in the past to be impossible.

If you liked No Longer At Ease, I also recommend The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Dare, The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emeze, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

Happy reading.

Ms.Bjork