Phew.
Ms. Adebayo has a way with words. The way she has artfully portrayed the story of Yejide and Akin in Stay With Me is masterful.
I did not, could not have, anticipated the way the story would pan out.

When I initially wrote this review immediately after reading Stay With Me, I felt conflicted. I literally wrote that I had mixed feelings.

Here’s the thing: Ms. Adebayo didn’t mince words whilst protraying the character’s inner feelings, and she certainly did not mince words when discussing the um…relations betwixt* a husband and a wife.
I want to say that everyone should read the book, because it is such a good book. Because Yejide and Akin and Dotun are human with human failures and maybe we’d see just how horrible life could be when we run to everything but God. Truly, running to God.
But I don’t want to say that everyone should read the book because of the unabashed bluntness that Ms. Adebayo employs in discussing the aforementioned relations.
So….
Final verdict?
Stay With Me is a great book that teaches important life lessons.
But only for my mature cuties (both physically and spiritually).

P.S.
Here are two of my favorite sentences from Stay With Me:
1. “Two weeks before the armed robbers wrote us a letter, a new salon was set up right beside mine,”
2. “I always thought they let him have his say and his way because they did not want to be responsible for his death”

Ms. Adebayo writes some beautiful sentences. They are so expertly written that they manage to convey much more than the words they contain.

*an old way of saying between. Blame Jane and the hundreds of P&P variations I have read.