I adored it, feeling every syllable stab at my core. God's Children Are Little Broken Things is one of the few short story collection I've ever read that has blown me away with each of its stories. I could laud this book with every letter of the English alphabet, yet I'd still be compelled to renounce words as a method of conveying the stories' ferocious emotions from eye to ear. Ifeakandu's writing skill is astounding.

This is series of nine short stories on the subject of being a gay man in Nigeria.

It was a challenging read. Mainly because of the subject matter, which was generally sad because of the difficulties facing people from the LGBTQ+ community in Nigeria. The various characters face issues with their families, with their communities with their jobs. Having to remain closeted and always with the risk of their secrets being found out. It's not an uplifting read, but I did enjoy learning about Nigeria and it's culture, about which I previously knew very little.

The other reason that I found it challenging was because the subject matter of the 9 stories is quite similar, meaning that there was some merging of them in my mind. Each story started without much context so I had to work to reset my mind from the previous story to separate them all out. I think it would probably be easier to dip in with a story at a time and leave a gap in between rather than reading it all in one go as I did.

I listened to the audio book and the narration was excellent. The narrators voice was very soothing and the accents, languages and dialects all sounded very authentic to me (someone unfamiliar with African languages and dialects.

Overall it felt like an important book that I would recommend to anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of the gay experience in different parts of the world.

I'm a proud Nigerian right now 😃 These collection of queer stories showcases our many cultures and languages and also how much repression one goes through to appear perfect.

God's Children Are Little Broken Things is a collection of short fiction stories by Arinze Ifeakandu that highlight queer stories from gay men set in the backdrop of modern day Nigeria. Any sort of homosexual relationships and activities are criminalized in Nigeria and can cause social problems from the Church and community as well, and these stories all capture the nuance of trying to be a "perfect" family man with a wife and children while trying to repress sexual identity in a world that won't accept it and the complexities that come along with it. I like reading African contemporary queer stories, because black stories that aren't centered in the West can be harder to find. I liked that these take place in Nigeria and interweave the many cultures and languages of the country. I had an audiobook version (which I think was narrated by the author himself) and I really liked his voice.

Thank you to TLC book tours for reaching out and sending a free audiobook in exchange for an honest review!