A big-hearted Nigerian-Canadian family drama that takes place in Toronto over the Easter weekend, as type-A daughter, Joy plans her mother's 70th birthday party only to have it turn into a disastrous wake slash prophecy that her mother isn't actually dead and will rise again.

Full of humor and lots of emotion, three generations of the Okafor family deal with past hurts, secrets and eventually find a way to forgiveness and healing. Good on audio and perfect for fans of books like Black Cake and Dava Shastri's last day. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

My library already has this book on the shelf and I am obsessed with it. My coworkers have started to make their rounds of reading and they all express that they loved it as well. I wish I could read this again for the first time because I loved it so much.

4.25 stars

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The beginning of this book I honestly felt confused on what was going on with how many point of views it continued to switch from. But once I got past that, I really enjoyed this story of this Nigerian Canadian family, and I could tell that it was a strategic play on Onomé’s writing part. The course of the storyline is so short, but feels so much longer with the amount of growth and self-reflection we see in so many of the characters. Grief is a large part of this book, and I think Onomé does an incredible job of showing how differently that can look within a large family system.

CW: death/death of parent, grief, homophobia, lesbophobia

Really interesting premise and a good execution, which I've been struggling to find lately. I felt like I got to experience the protagonist's family life which is hard to capture. Great job.

I wrote about this on the Storygraph and Goodreads and sent links to various social media sites. I really liked this book. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6343997964

I'm not sure what it says about me that I identify so strongly with Joy, and it's a conversation I'm definitely going to have with my therapist. I also felt so much sympathy with her son, Jamil, and the knowledge of how experiencing family strife and harsh conversations stays with you forever. For everyone who has ever had a family that didn't see you, or didn't accept you for whatever reason, this is going to resonate. This is going to hurt, and it's going to feel like screaming into a void. I yelled out loud twice (at Michael and Nnenna, respectively) but it was also impossible not to rage at everyone a little bit.

A strange journey through love, grief, acceptance, forgiveness, faith, and prophecy, once you start reading you won't be able to stop. And you'll be on the lookout for brown cows.

Solid 3.5 stars
I was hesitant to read this @ first because I did not enjoy Black Cake AT ALL.

Joy is recently divorced & trying to plan her mom’s 70th birthday party with her Nigerian family members on the way. Her mom had other plans though, she took a nap and died in her sleep.

I was a little underwhelmed with this book ngl. It was a little funny but not hilarious!! It had a lot of potential but something is definitely missing from this book. The ending was rushed & I actually wanted closure on the other characters Nnenna, Nancy, & Jamil. It wasn’t a bad read overall.


Thank You NetGalley for the ARC

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this book. This book was god to the last drop. As a Canadian Caribbean person, could I ever relate to this family. It was so relatable and easy to read. It was a quick fun read.

A fun and entertaining read. I related to Joy and could easily empathize with her.
Many thanks to Atria and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Pride and Joy by Louisa Onomé is a touching and funny novel about three generations of a Nigerian Canadian family dealing with the passing of their matriarch.
I really enjoyed this book. It is so well-written that I felt like I was watching a movie play out. Every character was relatable in so many ways that I couldn’t help but feel for them.
The words on the page will draw you into another world.

Thank You NetGalley and Atria Books for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Poor Joy! Just when she thinks she might have finally nailed it with a birthday party for her mother, her mother dies. Their large slightly dysfunctional religious Nigerian family is all there at the mansion Joy rented for the party and now, now because it's Easter weekend, they're waiting for her to rise again. The story is told from the third person perspective of several of the family members but Joy is the one you'll most sympathize with as she juggles all of them with her grief. Oh and her awful client, her ex and her son. This sometimes goes a little over the top but it's redeemed by the deeply felt emotion Onome has imbued into the story. You, like me, might learn a little about Nigerian culture (and food). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. It's a good read.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
I mostly enjoyed the prior Louisa Onomé books I’ve read, so I was excited to read more from her, especially as Pride and Joy seems to be her adult debut. While her prior works focused more on teenage coming-of-age for a single Nigerian girl, I loved that this book pivoted to explore more mature topics and broader Nigerian Canadian family dynamics.
I admit I was initially a tad daunted, as while the book focuses heavily on Joy, there’s also a focus on her role within her family with its many relationships. I really took the time to study the family tree while reading to grasp how everyone was related to Joy, and each other. While the book could have suffered from “too many characters” syndrome, I feel like each was distinct and vibrant in their own right, with all their interpersonal dramas and rivalries.
Joy herself does sometimes seem like the least interesting character in that regard, but I also think that also makes her the right focal point for the book, centering and anchoring all of it. And she has her own arc of reckoning with grief in the wake of her mother’s death, even with her aunt claiming her mother will rise again.
The plot and pacing of the book is where I feel very conflicted. The plot is the family drama, so it’s natural for the book to be slower and more introspective. But it being over the course of a few days is where I felt it was something of a double-edged sword. Upon finishing the book, I was in disbelief that so little time had passed. It felt at times like it was so much longer, even though the chapter time-stamps would dispute that. The pacing definitely gave the sense that this took place over a longer period of time than it actually did, with it very much being a slow-burn.
Personal quibbles aside, I enjoyed this book overall, and would recommend it to readers looking for a family/domestic drama with Black characters.

Thank you Net Galley for my advanced copy.

This book was a bit slower paced for me & that was a little off putting, but I held on and I am glad I did. I love Nigerian familial topics and interactions. I was able to learn, laugh, and weep throughout.

I look forward to reading more Nigerian stories from this author.

"Nothing is louder than the stares of a hundred people waiting to see a miracle."

This book is a celebration of the dichotomy of moms and children, family and faith, grief and hope, and yes, pride and joy.

I loved the touches of magical realism interwoven with the faith community.

"This is the magic of stars and planets and Earth and life. This is something else entirely."

And Joy is absolutely the main character in this story. Her voice is distinct and meaningful - whether or not her family (or the reader) agrees with her.

Absolutely gorgeous. Highly recommend.

Overall Rating: 4.5 / 5

Warnings: Death of Parent, Grief, Homophobia, Toxic Relationship, Death of Sibling

Review: This contemporary fiction is filled with so much emotion that I think the best way to kick off this review is with a quote that I had highlighted: “But a lot has happened this weekend. We are not ourselves. No one can be. in the face of grief. Nothing hurts like death.”

I am all too familiar with grief and how heavy it can be, and while the core of this story is about the passing of a family member, I found this story to feel like a warm hug. It helped to remind me that there is no “one way” to feel or process grief. The vast number of responses to losing a loved one were shared as vignettes into various family members as they each learned the news.

While I tend to be nervous to read stories that include a large cast of characters. each one in this story was completely unique and recognizable. I was able to relate to or at least empathize with how they approached the situation (even the Auntie with a prophecy!). I was invested in each character so much so that I found it very satisfying to watch them all work through their individual character arcs. Also, naturally with a lot of people stuck in one place all getting bad news, there was some pretty tense family situations. Some were so jaw-dropping I had to stop reading and immediately share it with a friend!

Out of the entire family, I found myself relating heavily to Joy and her personal growth journey. Which is funny, as I didn’t expect that when I first started the book. When we’re introduced to her I thought to myself “at least I don’t need to be THAT much in control of the things around me”. Jokes on me. There were quite a few aspects to Joy that hit close to home for me. One, was her acting in a self-proclaimed family role and how frustrating she found it. Two, how she still feels like she’s fighting against the traditional family expectations. Three, how even in her late thirties she’s still struggling with identity and diaspora. And lastly, how she has to work towards becoming vulnerable and allowing herself to ask for help.

As much as I enjoyed that the story-telling moved through various perspectives, I did find some of the side character moments to feel like nice anecdotes but not necessarily ones that I felt added to the main story. There were also times that the jumps between characters felt so quick that I had to reorient myself to understand who I was now following. There were also a few characters that would have been nice to see further developed, such as Nnenna’s children. Despite all of that, I was engrossed in the story and eager to see if each character would find healthy ways to express their inner thoughts with their fellow family members.

I really adored this book about family. Joy was planning a huge celebration for her mother Mary's 70th birthday, when Mary suddenly and unexpectedly passes away on her own birthday. It also happens to be on Good Friday and suddenly Mary's sister claims that she believes that Mary will raise from the dead on Easter Sunday.

This book explores many generations and beliefs amongst the family members who have shown up for a birthday party but may either get a resurrection or a funeral. The event is even getting the attention of local media. This is a humorous story that explores the differences in multi generations with various cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs in the same family. There are also taxidermied squirrels and a prophetic brown cow.

The only issue that I had is that the term, "she sucked her teeth," was used many a few too many times, but other than that, I really had fun reading this book!

This is very much a story about the entire extended family. I thought it was beautiful and complicated, like all big families. The growth in the relationship between Joy and her brother, Michael, was painful and rewarding to watch. I’m really looking forward to reading more from this author.

Joy is excited to show her family she can throw the her mother’s seventieth birthday party with no hitches, until the birthday mother dies that day. Joy’s aunt has a promotion her sister will be resurrected and ignited the Nigerian Canadian community.

While dealing with a death, this was a humorous novel, in a dysfunctional family type away. The author is a genius for imagining these characters, family tree, and how they all interact with each other. I really enjoyed watching it all unfold. I especially liked stepping into the culture, and the difference in generations. I did have to translate some terms, but no problem with google at my fingertips!

“There may be a truce, but the war is always raging.”

Pride and Joy comes out 3/12.

I was so happy to receive an advance copy of this novel through Atria Books and NetGalley. Pride & Joy is a Nigerian-Canadian family drama that takes us on a journey of love, loss, belief, superstition, and complicated familial relationships as a family navigates the loss of their beloved matriarch. Louisa Onomé did a beautiful job carrying us through each characters grief while balancing humour (and sensationalism) with tact and grace. This story spans over one weekend, but was full of growth and reflection for so many of the characters. I fell in love with some and despised others but everyone was so human which I really appreciated. As a child of the Caribbean diaspora, there was so much to relate to in this novel though the family is Nigerian, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t running to google to try to teach my self some Igbo here and there 😂 A family with strong beliefs, whose elders made sacrifices and crossed oceans to find success in new lands - what it means to be a descendent of that generation forging your own path and the conflict or ultimate togetherness that can come out of that is such an important story to tell.

It's a story about family and grief told from the perspective of three different generations. What was supposed to be a birthday celebration, turns into a lesson about grief when the matriarch passes in her sleep.

The book contains perspectives from just about everyone in the family. Each character feels like a fully developed person with a unique voice. Each experiencing and grappling with grief in their way as they wait to see if the premonition of the matriarch's return comes to fruition.

Reading this book, I felt like I was part of the family. Their relationships with one another, the way they talk to and think about each other, feels like every family gathering that I've been to. I found myself taking sides and felt like I was a gossiping auntie! I was quick to lose myself in the story and even went back and forth on whether the premonition would come true...

Overall, I'm grateful to have spent time with this family before the book hits shelves. The story, the way it's written, the characters... It all feels familiar and comforting.

Thank you NetGalley & Atria Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.