His Only Wife: A Reese's Book Club Pick - 'Bursting with warmth, humour, and richly drawn characters'

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His Only Wifeis a witty, smart, and moving debut novel about a brave young woman traversing the minefield of modern life with its taboos and injustices, living in a world of men who want their wives to be beautiful, to be good cooks and mothers, to be women who respect their husbands and grant them forbearance. And in Afi, Peace Medie has created a delightfully spunky and relatable heroine who just may break all the rules. Afi’s story Eli’s family pushed this marriage because they disapproved of Eli’s girlfriend, who he has a child with. They tell Afi all these lies about the woman that turn out not to be true. Why do you think the family was so against the other woman? Do you think they assumed Afi was easy to manipulate? I'm giving this a three because the middle section of the story was a bit of a slog. I loved the set-up and the many faux-pas Afi committed in her rags-to-riches journey (such as the uncertainty a buffet of unfamiliar foods might bring and throwing her weight around with the help to assert authority) and I thought the ending was an interesting twist and subversion of the usual OW plot, but the middle section definitely lost steam a bit along the way and I did find myself skimming a bit. It's still a really interesting story and I loved the Ghanaian setting and domestic drama elements of it.

What did you think about the ending? What happens next for Afi? Do you think she did fall in love with Eli? Peace Adzo Medie’s mesmerizing debut novel lives up to both the power of its first sentence and the promise of its author’s first name . . . At a time when adventure is scarce, Medie gives you a lot to look forward to, think about and be grateful for.” Afi is a young woman living in a small, rural community near the city of Accra in Ghana. Her mother and herself have existed on the edges of poverty, clinging to the good graces of their extended family and of Aunty, the rich benefactor of the community.

Plot-wise to me, there were a few holes and I had questions but not enough that I couldn’t understand what was happening or go with the flow. I just I suppose didn’t get the direction of the book and don’t really understand what it wanted to accomplish. When we were introduced to Yaya’s friends, I expected more to come from that nugget to create dramatic effect. The building of tension between Afi’s family and the Ganyos was fabulous, I only wish more had been done with that potential plot angle. The author was great at creating potential opportunities for tension but she often just releases them without exploring further or stoking the flames so there were lots of moments were my expectations for more drama were built and then allowed to fall flat. The resolution and the conflicts felt a little too easily achieved when a book such as this was BEGGING for more dramatic effect. When she does meet Eli she immediately (albeit rather inexplicably for the reader) falls in love with him – but this has the effect of making her unwilling to go along with the pretense of being second choice. And this puts her in conflict with: Eli (who insists he will resolve the situation, just not yet); the Ganyo’s (who sympathise with her situation and want the same end as her – but want her to follow their timing); her mother (who feels this is her one chance both to repay her benefactress Aunty plus to gain her own independence from Uncle Pious and build her own house) and Uncle Pious (who cannot understand why Afi, as part of her family obligations, is not sending him copious gifts and agreeing to house and pay school fees for various cousins). It was a little hard to "like" any of the characters in this book because some of them were a little trope-y but for me which was fine, I don't mind a trope- but they never quite managed to break through from the shell. I really struggled with Afi’s youthful naïveté. I struggled to “buy” the deep-seated love relationship between she and Eli, especially since she went in with eyes open knowing full well there was another woman involved in the mix. Therefore, it seemed a little out of place later when she made it seem like she was being cheated on when she came in as the latter day entrant to the “polygamous” relationship. It didn't really make sense to me as she was built up as knowing the situation beforehand and so, I’m not quite sure what her endgame or expectations were but as a reader, it didn’t feel realistic to me. Again, to be charitable, Afi IS quite young at 21 and also quite inexperienced, so perhaps that plays a role in her characterization and behaviour.

The book is set in Ghana and narrated by Afi – a young woman who lives with her widowed mother in a small town, and works as a seamstress. The book opens in the house of her Uncle Pious, her father’s oldest brother and family patriarch (a role he largely sees as a means to extract money from his family) – Afi is being married to Elikem (the son of her mother’s boss – Auntie – or Faustina Ganyo – who has been a great benefactor to the family) but Elikem is absent and his brother Richard stands in.Afi is married into the Ganyo family for two reasons: 1: Aunty G has been 'generous' (quotes because she did everything quid pro quo—the other party just wouldn’t know) with Afi and her mother a majority of her life since her father passed away and 2: the family wanted to get rid of Muna, Eli’s first wife.