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Benedicta Dzandu| Book Reviewer

@bene.reads

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Helping you discover hidden book gems!
📖 Reviews | Recommendations | Musings
🎙️ Host of @twobookclub
📍 Accra, Ghana

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Have you ever had a picture of what your life should look like by a certain age? The career, the marriage, the family, the home with the white picket fence, and all the little things you believe will fall into place if you follow the plan?

That was what came to mind as I read The Checklist by Nana Boatemaa Sem-Danso.

We meet Kharis Amma, a young woman returning to Ghana after completing her master’s degree in the UK. She has a plan for her life, and she is intentional about documenting it all. But, as life often reminds us, having a plan and having control are two very different things.

What I found particularly interesting was the idea of the white picket fence: that picture-perfect life we grow up imagining for ourselves. The life that looks beautiful, settled, and complete from the outside. But what happens when the reality of living does not quite match the picture in our heads? What happens when the things we have prayed for, prepared for, and patiently waited for do not arrive when we expect them to?

I think this is one of the things that made Kharis’s story relatable to me. There is something about the transition into adulthood, especially after school, when you return home with your qualifications, dreams, and expectations, only to realise that life is not a checklist you can simply tick your way through. Sometimes, you have to sit with uncertainty. Sometimes, you have to adjust your expectations. And sometimes, you have to learn to trust the process even when you cannot see how everything will come together.

One of my favourite things about this book was the writing. Nana Boatemaa’s style is accessible, engaging, and easy to follow. I particularly loved the short chapters because they made the book such an easy read.

[cont.. in comment section] by @bene.reads

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3 days ago

Memories 🥰

#khoipopup #ridacircle #kinkane #bookstagram by @bene.reads

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8 days ago

My current physical reads. It feels good to be out of a reading slump. I am so happy I am enjoying my current reads. 🥰

Love a good latte

We love a good breakfast

Proof of life!!! by @bene.reads

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11 days ago

Just pure joy 🤩 🤩🤩 by @bene.reads

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a month ago

“To be listened to is healing.”

Have you ever finished reading a book and felt like you survived yet you are healed by it? That is exactly what the covenant of water did for me.

I found myself thinking about my own family. About the things passed down without ceremony or explanation. How we all carry something inherited, not necessarily a medical condition, but a pattern, a silence, a tendency toward certain kinds of suffering that we have never really paid attention to until something tragic happens.

This is what Verghese captures beautifully in this book. He tells the story of three generations of a family in South India who are bound together by a mysterious condition that causes certain members to drown, even in shallow water. Verghese calls this “the condition,” and he never over-explains it. It is simply there, generation after generation.

One of the scenes that stayed with me is the opening when a young girl becomes the matriarch of the family. She arrives as a twelve-year-old bride at her new husband’s home by boat, moving through the backwaters at dawn. Verghese describes the water, the light, the silence, and the particular terror and wonder of a child entering a life she did not design. It felt so heavy to read, not because it was sad, but it was the feeling of entering into a life that is now irrevocably yours, with no map and no return.

Her transformation throughout the book was filled with so much vulnerability and warmth. The scenes with Baby Mol and Philipose were so memorable. It was such a soft reminder that as humans we should not lose our joy and playfulness.

[cont.. in next caption ]

One of the things that was profound for me was how he portrayed medicine as a covenant. A promise made between one vulnerable human being and another. There is this scene in the book where a surgeon performs surgery using a lamplight. This is a situation that would make a modern hospital administrator faint, and the surgeon does it with a concentration that feels like prayer. He also empathised how there are certain wounds we sometimes feel but cannot name.

I appreciated how he presented death not as an isolated event but as one that affects the people taken in Accra Ghana by @bene.reads

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2 months ago

One of my all time favorite author Charmaine Wilkerson. I cannot wait for good dirt to get it own adaptation.

The way good dirt just got me out of a reading slump. You will forever be a favorite. If you haven’t read #blackcake & #gooddirt what are you reading.

P.S I will be back with a review soonish.

#bookrecommendations #blackbookstagram by @bene.reads

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2 months ago

Can trust truly be rebuilt once it has been broken? And how do we move forward when the people who hurt us are also the people we love most?

Although this novel is presented as a romance, for me it was ultimately a story about the complicated relationship between two sisters, Dolly and Fola. It makes you think about how sibling love is rarely simple. We learn who we are partly through our siblings, through comparison, admiration, rivalry, and affection. The bittersweet truth about sibling love is that these people possess the power to make us feel both deeply understood and deeply hurt. Adesuwa captures this so beautifully in the sibling dynamics, whether it was Seyi & Jimi or Adun, Niyi, Dolly and Fola.

Spanning over two decades, the novel follows Fola as she navigates a dysfunctional family, heartbreak, love, and the difficult journey of finding herself.

At its core lies the fraught relationship between Fola, her sister Dolly, and Jimi, the man whose presence becomes a catalyst for both love and heartbreak.

One of the novel’s greatest strengths is its characterisation. Adesuwa writes well-rounded characters whose flaws make them feel real. Even characters who initially seem frustrating, such as Fola’s mother, gradually reveal layers of vulnerability that invite empathy rather than judgement.

I loved how Adesuwa explores validation and self-worth. Romantic love is often portrayed as the ultimate prize, but this novel subtly questions that idea. Through the dreams, desires, and disappointments of both sisters, we see how romantic relationships can become symbols of validation, shaping not only how people see themselves but also the lives they imagine they deserve.

This novel is a thoughtful exploration of family, identity, and forgiveness.

#adesuwaomannwokedi #everychoicebutus #bookreview by @bene.reads

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5 months ago

My people ☺️❤️🥹✨ by @bene.reads

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5 months ago

Good people and Good vibes 🤭🥹❤️✨

#sisterhood #friendship #welivehere by @bene.reads

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5 months ago

Thank you @smartlinebooks for the advance readers copy of La Victoria by Ayaz Shah.

Set in a small Venezuelan town, it is a story strongly steeped in the tradition of Latin American magical realism.

It explores themes of mental illness, toxic masculinity, and cultural denial, weaving reality and myth into a vivid portrait of a community on the edge.

#Lavictoria #arc #bookstagram #venezuela by @bene.reads

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5 months ago

If there is one thing this collection taught me, it is to always remember that to continue is not always to move forward; sometimes it is to learn how to carry what refuses to leave.

‘How many times person go dey beg God?’ is one of my favourites, and it sets the tone for the collection. It is savage, dark and humorous. She gives us dry wit with mounting dread in equal measure. The repeated exclamation of ‘God abeg’ (made me remember my friend Nasiba because she uses it in every sentence), but in this story it becomes a refrain that is both funny and heartbreaking.

Eileen Gbagbo’s poems felt so nostalgic. She writes about the performance of faith, the tenderness of grief and broken dreams. Contrastingly, Onyeche’s ‘Sometimes I Hinge My Heart on Faith’ is a meditation on language, silence, and devotion that moves between faith in God and a more general faith in oneself. One of the things I found inexplicably fascinating is the way Onyeche makes us understand that wondering in itself is also faith. His second poem, ‘My Father’s Words Before His Voyage’, returns to the overarching theme that runs through the entire collection and asks the question: what does the dead owe the living, and what do the living owe each other?

I would love to have a seat in Drc’s mind. His essay uses physics to make us understand why waiting eventually becomes letting go. I love the essay so much that I have found a new way of engaging with music. The ability to hear a song about your own destruction and find the melody beautiful. That, I think, is one of the quietest forms of courage.

The act of leaving is never really a single event, and this is captured so beautifully in Owusu’s Tape Letters, where she tells the story of a woman waiting for her husband who has gone silent after relocating. This story made me remember Kojo Antwi’s song Dadie Anoma, and it best captures the emotion the author was trying to portray.

[continued in the comments] by @bene.reads

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6 months ago

Counting my blessings ❤️🤍!

#benereads #lifeline #moments by @bene.reads

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6 months ago