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REVIEW: NIGHTS OF THE CREAKING BED

Author: Toni Kan

Genre: Fiction

My Rating: 3.5 Stars

Number of Pages: 166

Year of Publication: 2008

SUMMARY
Nights of the Creaking Bed is full of colourful characters involved in affecting dramas: a girl who is rejected in love, because she has three brothers to look after; a middle aged housewife who finds love again but has an impossible decision to make; a young man who can't get the image of his naked, beautiful mother out of his mind; a child so poor he has to hawk onions on Christmas day - and many others. Some, initially full of hope, find their lives blighted by the cruelty of others, or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or by just not knowing the 'right' people.

Corruption, religious intolerance, gratuitous violence, the irresponsible attitudes of some men to their offspring and the importance of joy are some of the big themes that underlie this memorable collection.

MY VERDICT
A collection of 14 short stories on love, lust, corruption, death, sorrow etc. I absolutely enjoyed the Nigeiran setting, coupled with the Author's choice of words. I liked how some of the stories covered numerous themes and had some humour in them, in the presence of all that sorrow.
Some of my favourite stories out of the 14 were; the devil's overtime, Buzz, the phone call goodnight and the car they borrowed. 
I liked the stories, but some of them were too rawly or rather explicitly written (my opinion)
All in all, it was a nice read that got me shocked, sad, angry and laughing all at the same time .
You can acquire the book at www.amazon.com (i'm too lazy to put the direct link lol )

PS: The blog now has an instgram account, check it out xx
@the_bemissary (Instagram)

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