Under The Udala Trees

I picked up Under the Udala Trees as an audiobook for a book club, and I honestly wish I had gone with a physical or ebook instead. Robin Miles is a passionate narrator, and you can hear how much care she puts into the performance. The combination of her accent, the names, and the flow of her sentences meant I was constantly rewinding and still feeling lost. That absolutely affected my experience, so if you already know you struggle with accents or need to see unfamiliar names on the page, I would not recommend audio as your first route with this one. The story itself follows Ijeoma, a girl growing up in war-torn, deeply religious, conservative Nigeria, who slowly realizes she is a lesbian. That alone is already dangerous in her country, and Okparanta layers that danger on top of grief, displacement, and the trauma of the Biafran war. Ijeoma loses her father young, her life of relative comfort disappears almost overnight, and she is sent away from her mother to live with another couple. While there, she falls in love with another girl, and that relationship becomes the fault line running under the rest of her life. Her mother, her church, and her community all reject her queerness, so she learns to reject it too, at least on the surface. There is a lot here that I respect more than I actually enjoyed reading. Okparanta is clearly a beautiful writer. She is doing big, ambitious things, tying together civil war, ethnic tension, misogyny, queerphobia, and the way religion gets weaponized against women and queer people. You can feel that she is trying to bear witness to real harm, not just tell a neat, tidy story. The author’s note about Nigeria criminalizing same sex relationships is heartbreaking, and it makes the book feel even more urgent. At the same time, this was not the right fit for me as a reader. I am not a religious person, and so much of the book is steeped in the Bible and theology. Ijeoma and her mother spend a lot of time arguing with scripture, quoting passages, and trying to make sense of whether God can accept her. I completely understand why that is central to the story. It is honest to the setting and to the characters, and I know that for readers who grew up in similar environments, those scenes will cut very close to the bone. For me, though, the heavy focus on the Bible started to feel repetitive and, frankly, a bit like homework. I found myself zoning out during the longer stretches of religious analysis, which made it even harder to follow in audio. I also felt a bit of distance from the love story itself. On paper, this is a queer coming-of-age novel about a girl who falls in love with another girl in a country that refuses to see them as human. In practice, I never fully connected to the relationship between Ijeoma and Amina. I wanted more build-up, more time living in their feelings, instead of mostly hearing about what that love cost them. The same goes for some of the book's significant elements, such as the war and the ethnic divide between Igbo and Hausa. They are essential, and I appreciate that they are included. It occasionally felt like the novel was trying to hold everything at once, leaving some emotional pieces underdeveloped for me. For me, the book landed in its quieter commentary on truth and the cost of denial. Watching Ijeoma try to live the life her mother and church demand, including a marriage to a man and the expectation to be a particular kind of wife and mother, is painful in a very grounded way. The scenes that look at how boys are prioritized over girls, and how women’s bodies are controlled by culture and faith, hit harder for me than the theological debates. Those parts felt sharp, specific, and sadly familiar. So, where does that leave my rating? This is one of those books where I am glad I read it, glad it exists, and absolutely see why other readers love it, but it was not a personal favorite. Between the audiobook comprehension issues and my lack of interest in heavy religious content, I never fully sank into the story the way I wanted to. For me, it is a solid three-star read, with a big asterisk that format and personal background played a huge role. If you are looking for queer literary fiction set in Nigeria, are okay with a slower, more reflective pace, and either connect with or are curious about Christian theology around queerness, you might get a lot more out of Under the Udala Trees than I did, especially in print. I respect what Okparanta is doing here, even if I am not the ideal audience.

DNF

I love the easy tone of the writer, the simplicity in which she passes her messages. The story fills the reader with hope of what could be, what should be and hopefully what will be. One thing I love about the book is how Chinelo did not sugarcoat the experiences of closeted gays in Nigeria, the persecution, the constant fear and the ruthless killing in the name of God. An excellent read

A story about an illicit love affair between two women is a challenging subject to pull off in the context of the extreme denial in traditional African cultures, that such relationships have any value. This charming story as seen from the mind of a young girl growing up isolated and afraid in the Biafran war enable us to understand the enormity of women’s suffering in the face of such taboo. Not only is the story itself outstanding, but the skill with which we are lead through it would tick all the boxes in any creative writing course, making it an example of how to write with delicacy whilst exposing the horror of truth. Not surprising that 'Under the Udala Trees,' has been so critically acclaimed and that Okparanta has established herself at the top of the new generation of Africa writers growing up outside Africa, searching to understand their African roots with a finesse the previous generation often lacked.