His Only Wife By Peace Adzo Medie – A Critical Review

A critical review of His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie presents an insightful and concise review of a well written domestic drama.

I assure you of getting hooked at the first instance of picking up the book. A sure bet for enjoyment with a touch of limited area for improvement.

“Yes, I love him with my head. I’m not going to waste my life on a man who lets his mother tell him who to marry. A grown man with a potbelly and a receding hairline who is afraid to tell his mother what he wants.”

‘His Only Wife’ is a well written domestic drama that had me hooked, right from the first sentence: “Elikem married me in absentia; he did not come to our wedding.”

DESCRIPTION 

Book Title: His Only Wife
Author: Peace Adzo Medie
Number of Pages: 246
Published by: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Year of Publication: 2020

Arranged marriages have always been my favourite subject in fiction, and this one hit the mark for me. Starting with the writing style, His Only Wife will pull you in and have you feverishly turning the pages with the ease and simplicity of it.

I have seen a couple of reviewers describe this book as feminist, and it kind of is, but not in the way I think people will expect it to be.

Afi’s new husband is involved with a woman his family disapproves of. So she is chosen by his mother who happens to be her benefactor, to marry Eli, in hopes that she can win his heart away and get him to leave the other woman.

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I really loved Afi’s character. Especially her character development. She grows from being a timid, naive, unexposed, unsure young lady who is afraid to voice her thoughts in the beginning, to a resilient young woman who goes out in the world to get what she wants. I kept rooting for her as she stood up for herself and went about launching her own business and building a house for her mother.

Elikem reminds me of some men I’ve met who want to have their cake and eat it. He wasn’t ready to leave his first wife, and he still wanted to have Afi as a side topping too.

Another character I would have loved to read more about is the other woman, Muna. For much of the story, she was shrouded in mystery, only for us to get to the tail end and realize that the little we thought we knew about were lies cooked up by Eli’s family.

If you are in the mood for an even-paced domestic drama set in Ghana that highlights issues such as polygamy, family interference in marriages, arranged marriage, and love, you should definitely read this.

For me, it is a⭐⭐⭐⭐/5.