Jessica Woodbury's Reviews > Little Rot

Edit: June 2024. Wow I just reread this review and I apparently completely forgot that I was reading an Akwaeke Emezi novel. I treated this like a regular book which is absolutely a mistake. So my apologies. This was a bad review. I can't believe I said "hey write something more focused" as if I had never read any of their other novels.

So let's regroup. What we have here is Emezi diving into the underbelly of society. Imagine you could do something like Eyes Wide Shut except homosexual subtext becomes text (thank god) and the nefarious secrecy is actually real and bad in a way that has consequences and the world is a place where sex can show you who you are or unravel you or be the tool you need to survive or be your biggest secret.

Yes, it's violent and full to the brim of content warnings, but that is also the point. Because all of this is real and it's not just a fun little escape for rich people to indulge. Emezi forces us to see all of this through, to follow a handful of decisions through to their inevitable, terrible consequences. No one is safe, no one is pure, and almost everyone finds themselves in a position where they can inflict harm or pain on another person to save themselves or for no reason at all.

In the middle of all this chaos and suffering, we find moments of joy and connection and love. And maybe there isn't a utopian vision, because how can there be one in this world? But it is a place where we can fight for each other and ourselves and survive.

Original Review: It's best to experience this novel in the moment, not to look for the many pieces of it to come together into a cohesive whole. The book doesn't really let you know that this is how to read it, so I will tell you. The book starts you off from one point of view for so long that it seems that is what matters, when ultimately it is really secondary to the story its trying to tell. If anything, Aima exists only to try and root us in some kind of morality and normality so that we can then be pulled out of it for the rest of the book into the underbelly it really cares about.

Emezi brings a lot of their strengths to these characters. Once we set Aima to the side, then there is trauma and violence and longing and most of all, sex. Most of them have a casualness they bring with them, an ability to look past the worst of the world they are in. For Kalu this world is an escape from an otherwise respectable life, for Ahmed it is a world he is trying to control for his own power, and for Ola it is her best shot at a life of security despite the risks.

There is, for just a moment, a vision of another world here. In this other world, sex is empowering and joyful and communal. Ahmed's version may look like something exciting and joyful, a place for people to feel safe in their desires, but this is only the outermost circle and there is much more the farther you go down. There are a few moments of pure longing and desire, but they can never last.

What does Emezi want to bring us here? What are they trying to explore? It's never entirely clear. Moments with these characters feel emotionally rich and complex, and the story is almost always very queer. As they continue to play with genre, there is something of the erotic thriller in this story, but I would love to see something a little more focused from them.