Everything Good Will Come book review

Everything Good Will Come introduces an important new voice in contemporary fiction. It is 1971, a year after the Biafran War, and Nigeria is under military rule - though the politics of the state matter less than those of her home to Enitan Taiwo, an eleven-year-old girl tired of waiting for school to start. Will her mother, who has become deeply religious since the death of Taiwo's brother, allow her friendship with the new girl next door, the brash and beautiful Sheri Bakare? Everything Good Will Come charts the fate of these two African girls, one born of privilege and the other, a lower class "half-caste"; one who is prepared to manipulate the traditional system while the other attempts to defy it.


Written in the voice of Enitan, the novel traces this unusual friendship into their adult lives, against the backdrop of tragedy, family strife, and a war-torn Nigeria. In the end, Everything Good Will Come is Enitan's story; one of a fiercely intelligent, strong young woman coming of age in a culture that still insists on feminine submission. Enitan bucks the familial and political systems until she is confronted with the one desire too precious to forfeit in the name of personal freedom: her desire for a child. Everything Good Will Come evokes the sights and smells of Africa while imparting a wise and universal story of love, friendship, prejudice, survival, politics, and the cost of divided loyalties.

There are so many elements covered during the course of this book, as you’d expect from one dealing with decades of two lives. Particularly compelling components for me were Enitan’s strained relationship with her mother, the pressure she feels when she’s 35 and still childless, Sheri’s decision to work the system and find a sugar daddy (before it turns sour), and Enitan’s fight to prove herself as a capable lawyer in a country which used ‘feminist’ as an insult.


I loved Atta’s use of dialogue too - I find a lot of authors struggle with speech, it often comes off stilted and awkward, whereas here you can sense the sparks between all the different characters with their angry, passionate, jealous and witty back-and-forths. She also slips some keen-eyed observations in there regarding how the rest of the world views Nigeria and how Nigerians feel about their country. . I did think some parts were a little rough around the edges (there were some weird proofreading errors), and I think there could have been more dimension had the chapters been narrated alternately by Enitan and Sheri, rather than just Enitan, but overall it was a very rich read and made me look forward to reading more by Sefi Atta!