'Yinka' was so much fun. This is a warm and funny contemporary romance, but Yinka has depth too. She struggles with self-acceptance in the face of colorism and rejection from men. Her faith grounds her and guides her, and her family bonds are strong. I loved the Nigerian culture that is woven into the story, especially the food. I rooted for Yinka as she struggled with her career, her relationships with men, and her family.

It's hard to believe this is a debut novel. I look forward to more from this author. Highly recommend!

This is a fun read, with a very relatable cast of characters. I was sad to leave this group of family and friends at the end of the book.

Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn is a fun tale set with characters who are of Nigerian heritage and obsessed with Yinka finding her husband. Yinka is content living her life, spending time with friends and family, and building her career. She's finding contentment volunteering and meeting fellow volunteers. Lots of laughs ensue as the antics of Yinka's family unravel. Read and enjoy!

Yinka's life is a mess. She has been laid off and recently ran into her ex-boyfriend...and his new fiancé. She also faces constant pressure from her family to find a "huzband." This is a beautiful story of self-acceptance, family, and love. I couldn't put this book down and I plan on recommending it to as many customers as I can. This book made me laugh, cry, and even made me feel indignant on behalf of Yinka. I love this book and already know I am going to have a difficult time finding a book to beat it as my favorite of 2022!

This book was hilarious and silly and made me laugh out loud several times. I didn’t enjoy all the church stuff though. It was pretty triggering for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC, but yet again, I listened to the audio. Ronke Adékoluejo does an amazing with the narration. Yinka is in her early thirties and battles multitudes of external pressure to fit into the box of her family and society's expectations. Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? follows Yinka's journey navigating these pressures. Ultimately, this is a novel of sisterhood, self-love, and living in the moment. Yinka is a good choice for book groups that enjoy women's/mainstream fiction. Recommended for fans of "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine", "30 Things I Love about Myself", and "It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake".

I was really excited for this one -- Emily Henry recommended it wholeheartedly and I love her work so I figured this was a sure win for me. It wasn't, and that's partially personal preference and partially the book.

Yinka's Christianity is really central to the plot, which is not at all clear from the description. I'm pretty uninterested in characters' religious journeys (or religious influences) and that's the personal preference issue at play here.

What is, I think, not personal preference and rather an issue with the writing itself is Yinka's characterization. She's so incredibly naive, to the point where she's making decisions that I'd expect someone a decade younger than her to make, not a well-educated woman in her early thirties. I found it difficult to empathize with some of what she does because it was so clearly a poor choice. It seemed pretty clear to me that everything she was doing was destined to backfire on here and so it was tough for me to root for her.

Anyways, I think the rom-com comps are probably pretty accurate here, but it's definitely not a romance. I think it'd be a fun spring break book for someone, though.

Yinka has always believed that love would find her in its own time. But everyone else is tired of Yinka waiting around for love, like her Nigerian aunties who pray for her to find a partner, her coworkers who think her romantic choices are too traditional, and her friends who are pushing her to get over her ex. When her cousin gets engaged, the upcoming wedding pushes Yinka to take finding love into her own hands.

This book is a love letter to female friendships and a self-love manifesto! Yinka's narrative voice is so funny and endearing, and I enjoyed how the non-prose elements (like Google search histories and spreadsheets) give us an even more intimate look into her brain. A warning for romance readers--this isn't really a romance by genre standards. But it's a wonderful book with a perfectly imperfect protagonist you won't forget!

I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this. This laugh-out-loud contemporary romance with an absolutely fantastic cast of characters and it was so, so refreshing.

Humor, family, culture, and self-discovery mark this gem of a story about a thirty-something British Nigerian woman who must navigate the path between family expectation and what one can learn to appreciate about one’s self. Debut author and just the right elements to tickle my fancy.

A pretty, healthy and content woman in her thirties has a home in London, solid career in finance, good friends, and a close-knit family. What more could one want? Well, if one were to ask Yinka, life is good, but if one got the unsolicited and often given opinions of Yinka’s mum and the aunties, Yinka is approaching crisis age because she has no ‘huzband’ and family. Her younger sisters is having a baby, her cousin has a family and children, and now another cousin is getting married. The furor of need is whipped up in Yinka and she is determined to have a man of her own by that wedding. A few mishaps and missteps occur and Yinka’s life must go to pieces all aided and abetted by the aunties and her friends, but in the end, perhaps Yinka will find her husband. At the very least, she finds herself.

I have no idea why, but show me a blurb or title that mentions ‘aunties’ or big family and I am all in. I love multi-generational stories whether they are simply fiction or have the added romance. Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? leans hard toward Women’s Fiction, but yes, she does fumble her way toward love.

The humor is what grabbed me first. I was already laughing when the book opened on her sister’s baby shower and a strong dose of mum, the aunties, and religion had one of her sister’s co-workers fleeing like it was for her very life. Then her youngest aunt said a prayer over Yinka’s despairing love life and I giggled just before I fell hard for Yinka and wanted her story even when she lied so much I wanted to bop her just to tell her family the truth.

I knew much about this one would be new to me from a British and Nigerian heritage, race, career, and more, but the author drew me in and made all that relatable through her characters who ultimately are universal to all of us in their need to find themselves, like who they are, and connect with others.

The author brought a lot to the table and gave me much to think about when it comes to such a mesh of culture and lifestyle that Yinka experienced. Yinka really did end up spiraling downward into her own personal crisis before all was said and done. But, it wasn’t heavy with current struggles and drama because of that deft use of humor and light writing tone to balance it all. It ends on a triumphant note and the reader is left with a wonderful experience into modern British and Nigerian life, love, and family.

All in all, I loved this light, heartwarming and easy to read women’s fiction and hope the author gives us more life with the Aunties in London. I recommend it to those looking for story of a woman finding herself, meddlesome and loving family, and a whiff of romance.

Thank you Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Viking for access to this arc.

So yeah, this book was following along in the hallowed Brit Chick Lit tradition for a lot of the way. Yinka isn’t subjected to the pratfalls that Bridget Jones endured but she does have her mum and Aunties publicly praying for her to find a man, plus there was some cringeworthy behavior from a particular Auntie at a recent family wedding, so there is that. Yinka has enough flaws and vulnerabilities to make her believable yet it’s also understandable why she tries to “keep the peace.” Where this one shines early on is in the British Nigerian rep. The culture, the food, the religious service, the traditions, the clothing, the Yoruba language – I felt immersed and it was wonderful. What’s even better is that it didn’t read as if information had just been cut and pasted from the internet but that all of this was worked through the story in a realistic and natural manner. I also enjoyed how her roommate’s aromanticism was sensitively handled and actually a part of the story rather than just being a diversity box ticked off.

The struggles that Yinka and some of her friends and family face daily aren’t smoothed over either. One of Yinka’s Aunties (and I loved Auntie Blessing) is a successful barrister who, as a Black woman, has had to work more than twice as hard to achieve that. Yinka has an Oxford degree but also felt she worked harder than many of her colleagues. The neighborhood where she grew up is slowly being gentrified and when Yinka tries to bargain over a purchase with a Black shop owner, her friend takes her aside to remind her that those are the business owners in danger of being pushed out and who need to be supported. Time after time, Yinka sees Black men around her preferentially choosing to date lighter skinned women and her mother urges her to grow and treat her hair rather than wear it naturally.

As I mentally decided which man in the story Yinka would end up with and when she’d get a new job, things took a turn. I knew it would happen sooner or later and eventually Yinka gets caught out in some of her fibs then everything comes crashing down. She had frustrated me by not just telling the truth yet I could also understand the pressures that led her to do that. At this point Yinka, and I, went through the ringer. In a moment of despair she almost did something that had me yelling at my ereader, “No, Yinka, no! Don’t do that!” Luckily a friend was there for her and the cathartic section of the book began.

If Yinka had just found a man (even if he was wonderful) or gotten another banking job (even if it paid well) and not made waves with her family about the pressure put on her and been given a HEA, I would have thought “okay this was a nice change from the usual and I enjoyed the diversity” but no, that didn’t happen! Instead
there is some soul searching, life examination, and self discovery that had me cheering her on. Perhaps the conflicts are worked out a tad too quickly but the building blocks were supplied all through the story so there was nothing out of the blue. The ending has Yinka in a good place, happy with herself, and ready for what might come next. And she and I are just fine with that.

I found this book fun to read because it is such a different culture than mine. The mom and the aunties are not likeable, which iI think is how they are supposed to be.
After a while it got to be a bit too drawn out and I skipped to the end just to see what happens to Yinka.
I would recommend this book to younger readers.

Yinka Where is Your Huzband? is a fun and enjoyable debut novel by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn, a story rich with warmth, humor, wonderful characters and friendships you can truly believe in. We meet Yinka, a 31-year-old woman who had pretty much everything a girl could want: her own home, a great job, good friends. Well, everything except a boyfriend or 'huzband', much to the chagrin of her mother and aunties. After one too many times of being embarrassed by her mother and aunties she decides to find a boyfriend in time for her friend's wedding. Along the road of this journey, she ends up dealing deals with losing her job, meets a range of characters along the way, dates a few Mr. Wrongs, and learns how to be true to herself along the way. It's about love, but most importantly loving and accepting yourself; something we all need a bit of that. Yinka's Ghanaian best friend Nana is amazing; a strong woman with her own views and thought, confident in who she is and what she does; creating her own company. Her other two good friends, from work, bring her a fresh view, one from people from outside her community.

This story touched on a number of life experiences: love, marriage, friendship, mother-daughter relationships and family being the major ones. One thing is for sure, relationships can either make you or break you: I love the way Blackburn reminded us through Yinka's story and that important reminder in the end the most important relationship is the one you have with self. I loved the fact that this story reminded me, reminded us the readers that it's okay not to be okay and that it's okay to seek help. Yinka might have started out trying to find a husband, but in the end she found her true self. I highly recommend Yinka Where is Your Huzband? to other readers and look forward to reading future books by Ms. Blackburn.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

I wanted to love this story, and in the end I kind of liked it, but for the first half I nearly DNFd it so many times. The last 25% made up for that.

We were continuously slapped in the face with Yinka and her absession with other women's butts and her eternal singledom. We got it the first 37 times you told us.

I hated each and every character (well, maybe not one) at some stage as I was reading.

I wanted to yell at the mum and Auntys to back TF off. I wanted to yell at Yinka to stop being a door mat. Gah, so so much.

It took till the last 25% for me not to want to tell them all off.

I feel that others will love this book, but we were not a great fit

Picture yourself at your sister's baby shower. Your cousins and aunties gather around and remind you that you are past 30 and still single. One overzealous auntie raises her hands up in a spontaneous and very long prayer on that very subject. Welcome to Yinka's life. Even though I am not Nigerian, I am a sister in Christ with women like Yinka. Her faith was a visible, tangible piece of who she was. We all struggle with the "when will I find love" problem and the "am I in the right career" question, and "why do the men I meet want a woman who looks like (fill in the blank)" dilemma. Women of color will most definitely be able to relate to Yinka in even deeper ways due to her struggles with colorism and honoring her Nigerian roots. There is a lot to unpack in this book, yet it still has a light tone and is an enjoyable read. Alternate formats like text conversations, internet searches, and calendar reminders are sprinkled in adding variety. A wonderful debut. Looking forward to seeing more from this author.

Thank you to Penguin Group and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

I had so much fun with this book. I loved the cast of characters surrounding Yinka. I could actually visualize her aunties publicly praying over her to curse out her singleness and ask the Lord to help her find a man. When Yinka’s world begins to fall apart she gets desperate to regain control. Part rom-com, part search for self-identity, part commentary on cultural and familial pressures to fulfill, and also some commentary on the opinion of dark skinned women within their own community, this book tackles some important topics with a light hearted flair.

A surprisingly touching, heartfelt story that shows the struggles of an MC dealing with all aspects of her identity: cultural, religious, career, friendships, romantic relationships, and self-worth. It's empathetic and so relatable even though I am from a completely different cultural background to Yinka. I loved the humor and the warmth of the story.

This was wonderful! It was not only funny; it was heartwarming, charming, & intelligent plus so full of heart. Highly recommended! Thanks to Edelweiss+ & NetGalley for the ARCs.

Oh, Yinka! What are you thinking? Oxford-educated banker Yinka Oladeji goes off the deep end when her mother and one of her many aunties pray for her in public to get a "huzband." Her response to this traditional expectation in her Nigerian-British family is to act in outrageous ways that often include exaggeration, half-truths, and outright lying. The cultural aspects of the book are interesting--with a terrific view of the lives of immigrants, but there are also many universal truths in the story. Engaging minor themes of religion, cooking, city living, career choices, friendships add much to the novel. Yes, Yinka gets her life on track, and it's a story well told.

Yinka, Where is Your Huzband by Lizzie Blackburn is a tenderhearted story that reminds us to love and take ourselves because that is the ultimate love affair. Yinka’s family, from Nigeria yet living in the UK, see her singleness as a disease of sorts. I think this is common in many cultures and the pressure to date becomes more of a duty than doing it when you’re ready.

This book poses as a romance, but I’d say it’s more of a finding yourself type of book. There were a great many subplots that kept my interest, and I found some the characters very intriguing. Yinka grew tremendously as the book went on, yet her incessant lying became annoying. I can understand why she felt the need to “keep the peace” and lie about so many things, but I wanted her to grow out of it much earlier.

I think this book shows women that life can change and doors can open at any time of your life. It also punctuates that it’s okay to not be okay, which we often need to hear, because so often we feel alone when we’re floundering. I appreciate the spotlight placed on mother/daughter relationships, sisterhood and friendship. This was a good debut and I look forward to reading more from Blackburn in the future. Social media reviews will be posted closer to pub date.