It finally happened dear friends. I'm in a book slump. It all started when I read one of the most amazing books I've ever read. I revelled in the comfort that book gave me and I was reluctant to read another. Eventually, I forced myself to start another with one of my favourite genres. I started that one but I wasn't understanding why the book was the way it was. And that signed it for me. Firstly, it was the fear of opening another unsatisfactory book but soon after, I lost interest in reading generally.
For someone that lived off books last year, I don't like it at all. But I can't force my brain to enjoy something it doesn't want to at the moment, can I? So, for now, I'll just go with the flow. I'm about to review the amazing book I read before going into the book slump - Tomorrow Died Yesterday by Chimeka Garricks.
Tomorrow Died Yesterday is a 575 paged book that tells the story of four childhood friends. The book which was was set in the city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria sees Doughboy, Amaibi, Tubo and Kaniye, four inseparable childhood friends grow up to follow different paths and become distant. When Doughboy, a dreaded thug in the city, kidnaps a top personnel in the company where Tubo works, he refuses every attempt by the company to contact him through Tubo. Instead, he requests for Amaibi to be his middleman in the negotiation.
When they agree on a ransom amount, Amaibi is sent to bring back the man but when he gets there, he is forced by Doughboy to bring back the man's corpse. Leading to Amaibi's imprisonment. From there, things begin to go haywire for every member of the friend group.
I've read all of this author's works and they were all masterpieces. He has only two published books to his name but yet, those two books were good enough for me to add him to my list of favourite authors. When I read A Broken People's Playlist (one of his works), I was forced to go check out his other works and that was how I came to this. At first, I thought this would be one of those stories that would be boring but I decided to put my faith in the fact that I loved his other work so much and I started reading. Reading this was one of the best decisions I made when it comes to books last year.
The characters in this book were constructed so beautifully. Kaniye, the lawyer. He was my favourite and I liked him for how easygoing he was. He made the most sensible decisions in the friend group and the fact that he was more passionate about running his restaurant when he could pass as the best lawyer of his generation was hilarious. He was such a lover boy. His pick-up lines were so good. Okay, I loved everything about Kaniye.😂
Amaibi too was a character I liked. The purest at heart in the friend group. He suffered the most and his story was heartbreaking from the beginning. Everything he went through made me cry so much and I was happy with what he got at the end. Nobody, not even the wickedest soul on earth deserved to go through what he went through. He deserved the best and I'm glad he got it. There were so many characters I loved in this book - Doughboy, the stupid guy who made the worst decisions, Dise (Amaibi's wife)- her story was too heartbreaking. Deola, the doctor. I don't think there was any character I didn't like apart from those that we were normally supposed to dislike as readers.
The storyline was really amazing. It was a rollercoaster ride of perfectly written twists and turns. Three pages to the last, I still wasn't able to predict what waited for me at the end. And I loved that. This author had the ability to leave you reeling and staring into space with just a sentence that didn't even span up to one line. This book elicited chuckles from me at different intervals, and at different points in the book, the author played with the reader. There were serious moments where I had bawled my eyes out, only for me to find out few lines after that it wasn't what I thought had happened, that happened.
I'm still in love with this book. Every character was given their own points of view and I was grateful for that. In a book like this, I needed to understand how every character felt and not just read about it from another character's understanding. I loved it.
This review won't be complete without me mentioning one of Chimeka Garricks's greatest strengths. Character development. Every character was given back stories and that was one of the things I loved about the book. I was able to comprehend everything that happened from start to finish and that's something I look forward to in reading. Each character's story was explained detailedly without leaving room for loopholes. I loved that.
There was nothing to hate about this book or maybe I just didn't notice. But if you're a lover of friendship tropes like this, with sprinkles of romance, you're definitely going to enjoy this one. I'll rate this book a 9.5/10. This book is worth reading in every way and you sure aren't going to be disappointed with it.
About my book slump, please don't hesitate to recommend any good reads you've read recently. I'd totally appreciate that. I honestly don't like the idea of starting the year with a book slump 😭.
Thanks for reading.
Images are mine
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