A Kind of Madness by Uche Okonkwo

"This is the work of our enemies."

I know I've said it so many times over the years, but guys, I really love me a short story collection. And 'A kind of madness' has just found itself a seat in my top 10 of short story collections.

Centred around the theme of 'madness', Uche delivers 10 short stories that will leave her readers truly mesmerised by her immersive writing style.

So, normally, I tend to love interconnected short story collections, BUT the way in which each of these stories was told was so engaging that I soon forgot about my preferences. Despite the short length, these stories & their characters were so fully fleshed out that I often forgot that I was even reading a short story collection.

As mentioned earlier, madness is the central theme to this collection, I liked that Uche was able to incorporate common ideas of madness such as mental illness, diagnosed + undiagnosed, but she always gave room to consider other forms of madness, such as jealousy + resentment.

Another aspect of this collection that I adored was Uche's ability to transfer her narratives to those of children. These stories felt very authentic and were some of my favourites. Especially Milk + Oil, which highlights the severity of Sickle Cell, and the naivety + innocence in children.

Fave stories:

• Nwunye Belgium

• Shadow

• Long Hair

• Animals

• Milk and Oil

• Eden

• The Girl Who Lied

The stories that didn't grip me as much were few and far between, but I felt as though either the clarity was missing, or they may have been a little too long.

If you are a lover of African literature + short story collections, do yourself a favour + add this to your TBR this year.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Huge thank you to @verve_books for putting this book on my radar. I am looking forward to reading more of Uche's work in the future 🙏🏾