A Boy Called Blessing

A moving reflection on Blessings and what it means to be loved, fully and without condition.

Editor’s Note:

This review of Blessings comes from Moni, one of our Chatters. It’s honest, clear-eyed, and captures a lot of what made last month’s book feel so personal for many of us.

Enjoy <3

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Blessings is a coming-of-age story that explores friendship, parenthood and family—the ones we are born into and the ones we choose.

It’s about love and loss in varying shades. What I enjoyed the most reading this book was its honesty—how it did not shy away from hard things, and how it simply showed without trying hard to instruct and without avoiding or brushing over sensitive narratives. By giving us a clear window into Obi’s reality, we could follow his journey faithfully.

We see Obiefuna grow from the fifteen-year-old who is resigned to the teasing of his mates and juniors to the man who learns to fight back, from the boy who buries his gift of dance to the man who finds his feet again and dances under the skies unconcerned with curious eyes. Obiefuna’s self-awareness is taken for granted so it is not so much of a story of him finding himself but rather finding how to exist in a society that not only makes no room for you but rejects you.

There is a very intentional setting of the story in our shared reality, with mentions of real people and historical events that fit into the story’s timeline, gently reminding us that while it is a work of fiction, it represents something very real. I liked the descriptive style - budding affection is found in curiosity, longing in a lingering gaze, hands that stay a second longer. There is something soft and endearing about the way the author weaves his words. His descriptions not only draw us into this world he created but also give us a window into the perceptiveness of the characters.

I found the groundedness of the third-person narrative style refreshing coming off last month's read. Rather than being in any one person’s head, I am a townsperson, a student, the one quiet friend in the room. The accounts of boarding life were occasionally hilarious and remarkably familiar, evoking long-buried memories, both good and bad, some I didn’t even know I had. In this way, I felt a sense of kinship with Obiefuna in this phase of his life. Chukwuebuka beautifully captures how our primal need to survive can trump other emotions, how quickly and heartbreakingly love can be subdued by fear, and how much of ourselves we might give up to fit an expected mold.

While we mostly see this world from Obiefuna’s point of view, we sometimes get his mother's point of view, showing us aspects of her life, not just as a mother, but as a wife, a sister, a daughter and a business owner.

It mostly comes together but there was a part where I wished that the interplay between these two perspectives was more cohesive.

When I start a book where the title isn’t descriptive or its meaning immediately obvious, I subconsciously search for clues in the pages, written plainly or somewhere between the lines. ‘Blessing’ pops up in a few places in the book, at the beginning and close to the end. Obi’s birth was a blessing, his parents thought as much. He brought great luck to his family from his conception. He was a special child, evident even as a toddler. Somewhere along the line, they start to think differently. He was different. It was a good thing, and then it was not.

It's a beautiful title because it encapsulates for me the sentiment that our differences are a blessing. When we let them, they give us an opportunity to learn, unlearn, reframe, embrace and above all love ourselves and others.

Obi’s relationship with his mother is a strong theme throughout the book and he considers her unquestioning love his greatest blessing. I couldn't help but wish she had been able to support him more, let him know that she saw him and he was not alone.

In the end, this is a book about love, the kind that sees us fully and accepts us as we are. I think everyone deserves that kind of love.