Speak No Evil: A Novel Kindle Edition

Oh, this book broke my heart. But in a good way, because the powerful and profound message it delivers speaks the truth. It is raw. It is brilliant. It is deeply affecting. It is impossible to read this book and not feel stunned by it.Niru is 18 and in his senior year at an unnamed elite high school in Washington, D.C. that is located on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral. (St. Alban's School, obviously, but it's not named as such.) His best friend is Meredith, who goes to National Cathedral School (again, not named). She loves Niru…actually, she is in love with Niru. Life is good. Both come from incredibly wealthy, successful and powerful families. Niru has been accepted to Harvard early decision, and he is a star on the school's track team. But he is harboring a deep secret, one that is tearing him apart. He confesses it to Meredith: He is gay. When his very strict, very conservative Nigerian parents discover his secret, Niru's world is shattered. His parents, who are deeply appalled and genuinely distressed, do everything they can to "correct" what they perceive as a deep-seated character flaw. And then tragedy strikes and changes everything. Because no matter how brilliant, kind and talented he may be, Niru is still a scary black man in the eyes of so many.Written by Uzodinma Iweala, this short book's strength is twofold: vivid, true-to-life characters and mesmerizing storytelling. I was completely immersed in the story, almost as if I had crawled inside the book and become a part of it. The result is a treasure that will stay with me for some time.Bonus: Read the acknowledgements at the end—totally worth your time.

Iweala’s coming of age narrative about a Nigerian-American gay teen captures the terrible beauty of discovering and being discovered as gay in a world that finds it, among other things, shameful and emasculating. He explores the added complication of cultural, racial, and gender tensions. And it is an impressive command of these issues.Ultimately an exploration of the tension between silencing or speaking truth in the face of social consequences, the phrase “speak no evil” haunts the reader long after the book is finished. But the most impressive bit of the book is his command of language and voice. The novel as an experiment in hearing different voices despite the absence of expected conventions. Quotation marks and line separations are absent from the dialogue because they are wholly unnecessary, and the book is stronger and more beautiful for their absence.Strong voices drive the unpunctuated dialogue and the stripped-down dialogue drives the narrative. These voices are so strong, the reader even knows the pitch and rhythm and timbre of their respective silences. And in Iweala’s tortured world, all too real for so many, each character is self-damned by the presence and absence of his/her voice. The profound silences beg the question: could the consequences of speaking truth that another perceives as evil be any worse than what silence has wrought?

The first 2/3 of the book is very strong and moving. It is the type of writing I think we all want to be exposed to. However, the ending did not resolve the problem with the main character when it should have given the issues around black male masculinity, consciousness about self, and sexuality. These are issues that are being discussed now across the continent. A powerful book that looks into these issues and the layers would have been needed but this one missed fell short. The ending is problematic because of the aforementioned issue. It ends with his story being told by the person who created the situation. It was very difficult to read the ending and sad that another black character just ends in pain like The Last Man of San Francisco, or Queen and Slim. Honestly, the book deserved a better ending.

In a semester of my African Literature course, I was introduced to some of the most moving, powerful, and magical works of literature ever written. However, the final book I read “Speak No Evil” by Uzodinma Iweala surprised, nurtured, and floored me in a way that was completely and totally unexpected. Speak No Evil is split into two parts: the first, and longer portion, which is written from the perspective of Niru, and the second chunk of roughly fifty pages from the perspective of Meredith. Niru and Meredith are inseparable seniors at a prestigious Washington, D.C. private high school with nearly identical routines, consisting mostly of track practice and homework, and identical ambitions to go Harvard. There’s a whole host of reasons that Speak No Evil spoke to me with a greater degree of authenticity and relatability than any other novel I have read recently. The first of which is the fact that what Iweala creates what could very easily function as a young adult novel. The book was published just under a year ago, and as a reader who is currently the same age as the novel’s protagonists, I can attest to the fact that Iweala’s depiction of the American high schooler is beyond accurate and crafted with great care, and attention to detail. He does this by painting a picture with current slang, popular music, and even smart references to widely popular dating apps such as Grindr and Tinder. Though this could eventually contribute the novel feeling dated in the next decade as those culturally significant touchstones begin to fall from popularity, in terms of current-day accuracy, they only intensify the reader’s connection to the characters. Without revealing too much, it must be stressed that Iweala writes with compassion, love, and nuance. Iweala lends complexity to each and every one of his characters. In essence, what he has created is an intensely political story, that is so timely and realistic that it almost doesn’t feel like a story. Despite this though, Iweala’s characters and relationships and painted in love.

A great read. Thanks, Uzo, for this beautiful story

Beautifully written insightful, amusing and extremely moving.

I loved Beasts of No Nation, so I was excited to hear that Uzodinma Iweala would publish a new novel. After some anticipation and a pre-order, it finally arrived. The slimness of the novel was surprising but welcome, since the length of a novel says nothing about its quality.I was also happy that Iweala took up the topic of homophobia (influenced by overzealous Christianity and a sense of tradition that erases all lifestyles that don't fit hetero-normative trajectories), the horrors of conversion therapy and other facets of discrimination the protagonist has to face after he is forced out of the closet.SPOILER AHEADI was disappointed that before any resolution could be reached, the character was killed of rather randomly and the focus then shifted to Meredith, the white girl who used to be his friend in high school.Yes, police brutality and police racism are very important topics to address, but Iweala did so offhandedly . The readers only learn of the protagonists death in hind sight. By "resolution" I do not mean a conventional happy end necessarily, but any kind of emancipated reaction by the protagonist.

I enjoyed the book and the delivery was made quickly, but the material of the jacket and book itself was quite poor. Holding it felt uncomfortable and the jacket kept slipping off, since it didn’t quite fit the book.

Predictable, deceiving and annoying.