Book Review for June. The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

The Fishermen for me was a sad book, the only joy I got was seeing Abulu die. I am not a murderer or anything like that but the guy (Abulu) caused real pain to this better than average Nigerian family.

The Fishermen tells a story of a family that was living a normal life in Akure, Nigeria and like young boys with a lot of energy they decided to try their hands at fishing, believe me when I tell you that they took the fishing very seriously (It was a family business) and even though their parents never knew (who will even tell Naija parents that you fishing in a very polluted like Omi-Ala) it was all fun until the prophecy from Abulu that Ikenna who is the first of the four brothers will be killed by a fisherman.

I never would have thought a mad man can cause that much harm because everything changed after the prophecy. It goes a long way to show that words, no matter how spoken, or by who can have a maximum impact on whoever they are said to. Ikenna took sibling rivalry to the all-time highest and the family was thrown to a literal war. After the demise of Ikenna and Boja goes missing only to suffice floating in the family well did I really understand that maybe a mad man can cause real harm.

After the burial of his two children, it was a race for who can kill Abulu but it seems he was a cat with nine lives because he just won't die. Like I said earlier he did die and I am very glad he did. This novel talks about Southwest Nigeria with all of its cultural, political, religious, economic, grief, and incarceration for young kids.

The things I took away from this book are:

1. Words have power.

2. Children are not easy to raise.

3. What might look like a small conflict between siblings can escalate to more.

4. Bad things happen to both good and bad people and finally,

5. We need a better system to help people with mental health issues.

Written by

Victor Opaluwa