Little Rot: A Novel
“A masterwork…mesmerizing…We come away troubled, unsettled — and in some subtle way changed.”–The New York Times
"The perfect steamy read for those hot summer nights." –People
A thrilling new novel from the bestselling, award-winning, visionary Akwaeke Emezi
One weekend.
The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city.
A party that goes awry.
A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed.
Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.
"The perfect steamy read for those hot summer nights." –People
A thrilling new novel from the bestselling, award-winning, visionary Akwaeke Emezi
One weekend.
The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city.
A party that goes awry.
A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed.
Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.
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Community Reviews
Overall, I enjoyed the writing and pacing of the book. Emezi skillfully pulls you into the lives of six friends and takes you along on their dizzying weekend adventure. Little Rot explores the duality of life in New Lagos, where characters grapple with the tension between desire and religion, love and loss, arousal and violence. The writing itself is captivating, but the ending falls short, leaving the story feeling unresolved. In the end readers leave the book where they started, trapped in the despair and rot swallows us all.
Overall, it was a good pull of attention throughout the book. Good amount of intensity and pleasure. Was slightly hard to follow as well. Lot of back and forth, but in the end, it did tie all together. The ending really dropped my rating. Left too many questions and / or possible endings to be desired.
Be very diligent with the trigger warnings, and listen to them. The author did a great job painting the picture of what is happening in our world. The book is heavy in the topics that some of us shy away from. I was triggered, but it also opened my mind to the understanding that "rot" happens and that some societies are not afraid to hide it. I don't agree with or condone the "rot", but you're either consumed or freed by it.
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