I...... have no words.

Little Rot is Emezi's debut thriller and it was definitely thrilling!!! This is set over one weekend in New Lagos, Nigeria and follows an interconnected group of friends and the death threat and underground sex party that uproots all their lives.

It took a bit of time to figure out how all the characters were connected (roughly the first 50% of the book) and once you get to that point, everything picks up incredibly fast. I was starting to lose interest as we were being introduced to all the characters at the beginning of the story since establishing that took so long, but i FLEW through the second half.

There are so many triggers in this book - if you have -any- personal content warnings you need to avoid I'd recommend not reading this. I loved it - but I think it's for a very specific type of audience: people who enjoy character focused stories, appreciate characters who are realistic over being likable, and have the emotional capacity to read in detail about sex, sexual deviance, murder, and more.

I am fully convinced all of these characters are real and loved having the short time period to frame this story, it really made for an action packed and INCREDIBLY unique thriller.

Anything Emezi writes, I will read.

*Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set in Nigeria, this is a very intricate tale. It begins with the breakup of a longtime couple and spirals out of control from there. The characters are so fleshed out that even if you don’t like them, you understand them. Lots of sex, lots of violence and lots of lies in this novel. I could not put it down trying to figure out how all of these interwoven threads were going to come together.

Emezi does it again. Weaving themes that stretch our imagination of gender, religion, sexuality, and morality. Place and time are characters, and this will be discussed for a while!

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thought that the author’s writing was very good. She was really able to paint a picture of the places and the people in the story. I just felt that the story was too convoluted at times. The way all the characters were eventually involved one way or another seemed improbable. Also, it was very sexually graphic at times. I don’t mind sex in a book but this was just too much. Some of the scenes actually made me uncomfortable.

2.5 rounded up

Akwaeke Emezi's writing is something that will stir your soul. The different points of views work really well in telling this twisty story full of lies and deception.

This book won’t be for everyone. There are trigger warnings all over the place (you can check those on Storygraph), so proceed with caution. It was one of the most (if not THE) unhinged stories I’ve read, full of unlikeable characters and people behaving badly, made me uncomfortable, and I had so much fun. If I haven’t scared you off of reading it, I highly recommend checking it out. (You’ll know pretty early on if it’s for you or not). Akwaeke Emezi’s episode on The Stacks podcast was fantastic, and there aren’t any spoilers if you want to listen before reading.

Most people are aware of my love for Akwaeke Emezi and their books. I have read nearly everything that they have published (I think I still have two backlist books to read from them) so I was very excited about their new release, Little Rot.

I think Little Rot is the book for people who loved Freshwater. I felt iffy about Freshwater and I felt iffy about Little Rot. Little Rot is definitely a very different story than Emezi's other books. It delves into the Nigerian underground but still has the LGBTQ+ elements that Emezi is known for in their books.

This book is a lot darker and covers some more heavy and disturbing topics so be forewarned about that before going into the book. I think this is a good book, but YMAFODWYB is still my favorite from them.

I've read a good part of Emezi's work and I think they are a beautiful writer. Unfortunately, the theme of this book was really ugly (at least to me) and I can't give it a good rating.

Each book I've read by this author is in a different genre and this might be their noir book. Every character in the book is concealing secrets about themselves and their sex lives from other characters that are important to them. Every character also makes assumptions about the other characters and don't realize that everyone has a darker secret or past than they are letting on. Most characters in this book feel that Lagos (where the book takes place) is a place of rot that gets onto them and makes them unclean as well.

The book revolves around the different meanings that sex has for the different characters. It could be a way to express love, find connection and reassurance, make money, exert power over others. There are a lot of sex scenes but they aren't incredibly detailed or all that sexy. Many of them go badly for the people involved. There are a lot of different value systems in play here and the misunderstandings that go with those value systems lead to the destruction of several relationships.

In the end, these misunderstandings lead to a scene that reminds me of the very first episode of the Black Mirror Netflix series. Remember when the Prime Minister had to have sex with a pig? This isn't quite that bad but it's very much the same feel of dirtiness, coercion and titillation. If that's not for you, this book probably isn't either.

Little Rot explores the depraved city of New Lagos and the key members that pull the strings. The story stems off of two characters, Aima and Kalu, who go through a difficult breakup after being together for years. This book was a difficult read strictly because of its content. Emezi writes beautifully and I have loved every other book I have read by them. They always delve into tough topics but this one was particularly riddled with sexual abuse and violence that some readers may be unable to stomach. However, I appreciated the willingness to explore the lives of sex workers with unflinching realism. Little Rot shows just how easy it is to be corrupted and rot into something you don't recognize. My only criticism of this book is that I wish it had wrapped up all of the characters plot lines in a more complete way. However, the ending absolutely drove home what Emezi had been communicating throughout the whole book.

The multi-talented Akwaeke Emezi does it again. Little Rot was skin-crawling levels of raw, providing a provocative view of some very complex, dark parts of humanity.

This was heavy, I needed to stop and step away a few times. That's on me for not looking into content of the book first. All the men are unlikeable, in fact a lot of the characters are unlikeable. But that's super intentional and needed for this novel. Little Rot is going to be one of those books that is so hard to recommend but will definitely need to be.

This is a book about corruption. While some characters start out morally and politically corrupt, others find their way there througbout the course of the story. I was completely fascinated and urgently needed to know what would happen from moment to moment; my experience reading this book was enjoyable in the worst way. I had visceral reactions to some scenes, particularly the unsexy sex, that deeply upset me. It is a complicated feeling to read about assault in poetic prose (a comparable experience to reading Lolita, in that way).

Emezi completely sucks their reader into the underworld and I was willing to stay there as long as the story would allow me to.

This is not a book for everyone. The characters are not loveable, there is not an obvious hero to root for. But for those willing to and able to read it, the story is addictive and beautiful.

This is a book set in Nigeria and it’s really difficult to read. It’s a book about complicated people who you hope are actually good but they really are just rotten. It’s seedy and uncomfortable. Please check the trigger warnings as there is some rough stuff in here.

I haven't read a lot of stories set in Nigeria , so I was excited to pick this up. This story follows five people from the same city in Nigeria and their lives after one person upends their lives with one devastating choice. I enjoyed how the writing style was a bit more simple, as I tend to get distracted by flowery or lyrical writing--the more straightforward the writing is, the more I can sink into it.
In the beginning, I was really compelled by the setting and by the way the characters would intertwined, but the more I read the less I felt that--I found their stories to be sort of incomplete in a way.

I will also add that this covers some pretty intense topics and material, so I don't know if I could comfortably recommend this story to people without them explicitly asking for the topics this contains. I'm not sure if I missed a content warning page or something like that, but hoo it could be intense at times. I was expecting some of it, from the synopsis and who some of the characters are, but I wasn't ready for how intense some of it got.

I'm a huge fan of Emezi's previous work, so I was excited to be able to read this story early! This story follows five people from different backgrounds in the same city in Nigeria and how their lives intersect over the course of a weekend after one person makes a decision with devastating consequences. I am a fan of Emezi's lyrical prose, which I found to be missing from this book. The writing style was more simplistic, even more so than Emezi's contemporary book from a previous year ("Fool of Death"). While I was intrigued by the characters, I found all of their stories felt incomplete and unsatisfying. Maybe if there were fewer POVs? I have grow to expect deeper thought and excellent prose from Emezi, and unfortunately this story felt more amateur than their previous impressive writing experience would suggest.

While I am still a big fan of Emezi and will pick up whatever else they write in the future, this one fell flat for me. Sure it was dark and gross and unsettling at times. But what else was it?

Thanks to the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

CW: murder, graphic sexual violence, rape, pedophilia, child abuse, guns, vomit, trafficking, kidnapping, homophobia, transphobia, religious bigotry, drug use, infidelity

Emezi stuns again. This was a fun, dark romp through the streets of New Lagos which reminded me that there are no clearcut lines between good and evil. As a Nigerian who grew up in Lagos, I feel like Little Rot is an accurate description of the ways in which corruption and greed seep into every part of our society. Every character felt authentic to me-- these are people I grew up with, people I know intimately. I absolutely loved it and feel that the ending occurred at the perfect place for what Akwaeke was trying to do with this novel. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a book with dark themes, authentic character studies, and incisive social critique.

I'd warn every reader to check content warnings online before reading, and I'd urge the publisher to consider adding content warnings at the beginning of the book. While I wasn't necessarily triggered, it's understandable why many people are-- especially because those warnings are not easily accessible to someone walking into a bookstore to pick this up.

I'm not a thriller reader, so I can't necessarily speak to the construction of it within the noire genre. I had a wonderful time and look forward to Akwaeke's future projects. More details in my TikTok review: https://www.tiktok.com/@reniesan/video/7372087578125782318?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7329521466297337349

Thanks to Riverhead for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. I love Emezi’s books and this one was no exception. This was so messy and the characters were so awful and unlikable, but what a ride! I don’t think there is any genre Emezi cannot conquer and I’ll be here to read them all.

Emezi is one of my favorite authors and I had really high hopes for this book. I’ve come to expect darker material from them, but this one was the most extreme yet. I personally don’t have an issue with that and actually really enjoyed the intersecting plot lines once the book picked up, but I would have a hard time recommending this to anyone else. With no content warnings and some pretty intense material, this isn’t something I’d feel comfortable telling other people to check out.

Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi is a challenging, dark, and tense novel. It is a perfect fit for readers who crave complicated characters and exploring the darker aspects of human nature. While the characters are certainly morally gray and are operating down in the titular "rot", there are still many moments of tender love and friendship. I found the story engrossing and hard to put down, finishing it in only two days. Emezi weaves the different characters' perspectives expertly as we follow what happens in the underbelly of a Nigerian city over one weekend. I loved Emezi's previous works including Pet and You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, and look forward to what they write next.

Ah, LITTLE ROT. I wanted to love you so, so much. From your synopsis I was expecting the stomach-clenching tension of Deepti Kapoor’s AGE OF VICE, mixed with the poetic prose of VIVEK OJI/FRESHWATER and controversial, erotic twists of FOOL, but I think because I loved Emezi’s previous fiction so much I came in with high, high expectations.

LITTLE ROT promises the thrill and dark terror of the Nigerian underworld filled with exploitation, corruption, and deviant sex—all over the course of one weekend. There is a rough and tenored flippancy to Emezi’s characters, emotions that unexpectedly turn, decisions that blur the line of expectations. In this, I see the queerness that Emezi brings to each book they’ve written, queer in the characters’ stories of survival and desire and (un)power, but also in how boundary-pushing and deviancy is a given. I love all of that.

But with that being said, for the writing and plot themselves, I found the pacing of both action and sections of interiority to be a bit off, enough to where I found myself repeatedly ejected from experiencing the book. I think I wanted to read this as one held breath, similarly to how I experienced VIVEK OJI, similarly to how so many thrillers I love clutch me and refuse to let me go, but LITTLE ROT just didn’t work for me this way.

Of course, books that aren’t my cup of tea may be yours. LITTLE ROT is out in June, and if you’re looking for a queer erotic fiction, please check the content warnings and pick this one up. Thanks again Riverhead Books for the gifted copy!