Ties that Tether by Jane Igharo

 

Welcome Back Booklovers,

I decided to end September with a fast paced romance read. The cover for this one certainly caught my eye but I wasn't sure I would read this until Berkley sent me a widget for the arc. 

This story is a about a young Nigerian woman named Azere who promised her father on his death bed that she would marry a Nigerian man specifically Edo and keep her roots despite moving to Canada. A wrench gets thrown into Azere's plans after a bad date ends ups in a one night stand with a mysterious man at a hotel. Later said mystery man the the Spanish Rafael shows up at her job as a new marketing director. As it isn't bad enough that they'll be working close together the drama gets taken up a notch. Azere discovers she's pregnant from their one night together.

I loved that this book opened up a discussion about immigration and the expectations and the pressure people place on themselves to do better. I liked that balancing two cultures was a talking point. This is a struggle immigrants and first generation people have. You want to fit into the culture of the place you reside but also want to hold on to your other culture. In ways our main character had to conform to fit in with the mostly white kids around her which included changing the way she spoke, dressed, ate, and acted. 

There were many references to Nigerian food, music, movies, and other cultural aspects which I enjoyed. Though at times I found things over explained to the point where it was clunky. Readers can look up things on their own if they're interested. No need to throw in a pop culture references and then go into a full paragraph detail behind it. 

I never felt like I fully got to know the characters in this story. Who is Azre outside of her family and lovers? Azere's mother is overbearing but true to life as she forces her uninterested daughter to go on dates with eligible bachelors, judges her for what she wears, and chides her on losing her culture. She has this deep need to please and sometimes their relationship is toxic. I know she's a hopeless romantic who loves rom coms and Nollywood films but I don't know about her career aspirations or what she truly wants in life. I don't feel like I really got to know Rafael either or gage his reactions to her family. The few chapters from his POV didn't really tell us much about him.

There was also this neighbor boy character who she used to babysit who was in the book for comic relief but none of it was funny. Everytime he popped up in my mind I was like, "Boy if you don't sit your little ass down." He used the strangest dated feeling dialogue to try and flirt with her.

Unfortunately the romance just didn't have enough chemistry for me. And at times this story falls back on that thing some interracial romance books do where the Black men the woman has dated in the past just couldn't compare to her new white love. All the Nigerian men wanted Azre to  be some woman willing to quit her job and raise the children. And while yes there are men like this it's a little hard to believe she couldn't find not one potential suitor who was more open minded. Specially she is encouraged to marry an Edo man but I don't recall her taking chances on Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, etc men. And she reflects on all the good non Edo men that she denied herself in an attempt to be the good girl.

I would say at it's core this is a story about an immigrant woman learning to come to terms with her identity and merging her cultures together. The sheer amount of drama can be overwhelming at times but the important conversations kept me moving forward.