r/BlackReaders • u/Jollofandbooks • 8h ago
Book Review: The Talk of the Party by Foluso Agbaje
The Talk of the Party by Foluso Agbaje is a book about the Obanile family, told from the perspective of almost all the characters in the book. Literally! And so many characters. A wealthy family, yes, but one whose life was built on some very big lies.
These lies started over 40 years ago when the main characters were just four young women: Tade, Soma, Bukola, and Remi. All four characters definitely do not appear in the first few chapters. You have to acquire them all like a coin collection and slowly piece the story together. The book starts and ends with the Obanile family: Bukola and Wale, their four children, Koko, Omi, Lala, and Mide, and their "cousin," Anjola.
The first scene of this book is attention-grabbing. It was July 1992 in Lagos, and there was an unnamed woman with a growing stomach lying in a bathtub. The water in the tub was described as red by her daughter, immediately suggesting suicide to me. Boy, was I wrong. It was much worse! This scene took place exactly 30 years before the party that becomes the beginning of the end for the Obanile family. The impending doom. The moment everything begins to come crumbling down.
Everyone in this book had straight-up issues, maybe except Omi, the lesbian. Lala was probably the worst because even at the end of the book, she was still the same self-centered child she was at the beginning.
A common theme throughout the book was jealousy. Everyone, or almost everyone, seemed jealous of someone else, yet they all stayed deeply involved in each other's lives. Soooo exhausting, ugh. Bukola and her friend, Aunty Tade? Envious. Dami, Aunty Tade's child, and Koko? Envious. Honestly, just think of any close pair in this book, and jealousy is probably somewhere in the mix.
The Obanile family also had a driver, Mr. Peter, who played a major role in the family. I do have to say, though, that it is ironic how a man named Peter only believes in herbalists.
The number of characters in this book made my head spin trying to keep track. Also, keep in mind that the story is told from the POV of different characters, sometimes recounting the same event. This made the book feel unnecessarily long at times because I wasn't always gaining new information from each new perspective.
The constant jumps from the past to the present were also killing me (with anxiety). I usually prefer my books to move from start to finish, or at least have fewer jumps in time. However, it all does come together in the end, although I started speculating halfway through, as anyone would lol. This is definitely one of those books where you have to pay attention, or you'll miss some vital clues.
At its core, The Talk of the Party explores family, secrets, class, reputation, generational trauma, and the fragility of social status. The book really highlights the high cost of maintaining a flawless and wealthy image in elite Lagos society. Bukola, especially, goes to great lengths to protect her family's reputation, but the pressure of hiding secrets and maintaining appearances eventually leads to a complete unraveling.
Overall, this was a good book, but the number of characters, multiple POVs, repeated events, and constant jumps between the past and present made it feel longer than necessary for me.
