BOOK REVIEW: Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro

Note: this book was read and reviewed by me in January of 2024 on a previous site that no longer exists.

Dele Weds Destiny had been on my radar for months, and I’m happy I finally got around to reading it.

I wasn't sure what to expect. The title suggests a romance, but the Goodreads summary—which is ridiculously long, by the way—makes it sound more like a drama.

Going in, I think I was hoping for a bit of both.

In the end, I’m not sure I got either.

Dele Weds Destiny is a story of enduring female friendships centered on Enitan, Funmi, and Zainab, three women who meet in college and are later separated by time, distance, and secrets.

Now, thirty years later, they are reunited for the event of the century: the wedding of Funmi’s daughter, Destiny.

Not about Dele or Destiny

From the beginning, it is clear who the main characters are. And as it turns out, they are not Dele or Destiny. 

We get about one meaningful on-page interaction between the two, and it is not nearly enough to get a sense of who either of them is.

Instead, the story focuses on three very different women.

The main story opens with Enitan, the quietest of the trio, as she sets foot on Nigerian soil for only the second time since eloping with her soon-to-be ex-husband, Charles, almost twenty years earlier.

She has her daughter, Remi, in tow, and it’s immediately obvious that their relationship is strained, made worse by the recent news of Enitan and Charles’s divorce.

By this point, I was curious. I was ready for drama—maybe a few catfights, a few mother-daughter meltdowns, or something like that. 

This anticipation is heightened when we meet Zainab on a bus from Kaduna to Lagos.

Armed robbers swarm her bus, steal everyone's valuables and shoot the driver, but they are also dumb enough to leave the key in the ignition.

At that point, I thought that if there are robbers, then I would be in for a treat. 

Next, we meet Funmi, the bride's loud, impatient, brash, and occasionally rude mother.

She is overwhelmed with wedding planning, annoyed by her obnoxious in-laws, and frustrated with her husband’s inattentiveness. I couldn’t wait to see how these conflicts would come to a head.

Spoiler: they don’t.

“But marriages were mysterious and private things, even to the people in the marriages themselves. One spouse's perception of how the relationship was fairing could be drastically different from the other spouse's. In marriage, you were ultimately alone together”

20% In

By the twenty percent mark, we’ve met all the important characters.

Destiny turns out to be a timid woman who shrinks in her mother’s enormous presence.

From what little we see of Dele, he seems like the type of person who wants nothing more than to appear important, and Destiny feels like just another box to tick on his way to achieving that goal. 

Straight from Enitan's thoughts about Dele:

“He was the kind of person who accrued degrees, collected them like art to display in his office. The kind of person who would subscribe to magazines he would not read, who would buy season tickets to the opera – that he did not like opera would not matter.”

Despite all this, the central conflict remains unclear. The title suggests it has something to do with Dele and Destiny’s relationship, but they get so little page time that their wedding feels like only a convenient backdrop.

I had no idea what the rest of the book would entail, but I was content to carry on because of the writing.

The Writing

The writing is descriptive and compelling, and Obaro excels at capturing setting.

Nigeria comes alive on the page.

I was completely immersed in the streets, the clothes, the people, and the chaos of the events. It brought back fond memories especially because Nigeria already feels a little different now than it does in the world of this book.

Obaro also gives each woman in the trio a distinct voice and presence.

She also skillfully depicts the casual, sometimes-veiled homophobia and racism ingrained in Nigerian culture. She does it without grand speeches or heavy-handed commentary, presenting it to the reader as it is.

It made me uncomfortable, but as a Nigerian, I cannot deny its existence.

“(Remi was always telling her to stop assuming that all Asian people were Chinese, it was rude and incorrect; and Enitan would tell her that in Nigeria, all Asian people were Chinese).”

40% In

By the forty percent mark, I was fed up with Funmi.

Initially, it's refreshing to have a strong female character who isn't mousy, gentle, or patient, but Funmi's abrasive attitude quickly becomes irritating, especially in her relationship with Destiny. 

The reader, Destiny's godmother Zainab, Remi—basically everyone except Funmi—can see the truth: Destiny does not want this wedding.

Whether it's because she sees something in Dele that bothers her or because everything is happening too fast, she is obviously reluctant.

Even when Destiny tries to speak up, Funmi dismisses her concerns.

Like so many Nigerian parents, Funmi steamrolls Destiny into doing her bidding, never stopping to ask what she wants. Straight out of the Nigerian Parent Playbook, she claims Destiny would speak up if she disagreed, while simultaneously shutting down every attempt to do so with a dismissive glance or gesture. 

Like Destiny, many children learn that it's easier to follow their parents' plans and hope they eventually find something enjoyable in them.

But every child must eventually find their voice, and Destiny takes her sweet time finding hers. 

I couldn't wait for the inevitable climax, when the wedding would surely blow up in Funmi's face. 

That's why I was surprised—and annoyed—when the story abruptly moves from the present back to the 1980s.

The Detour

“Zainab and Funmi were the striking beauties of the trio – ‘Coke and Fanta’ people would joke when they would see the three of them walking together on campus. That Enitan never got a nickname was a slight she was used to. ‘You attract beauty,’ a boy had told her once, but he had meant this quite literally; she attracted beauty only in the sense that she herself was not beautiful but her two best friends were.”

The friendship between Funmi, Zainab and Enitan is told through two timelines: the 1980s, when they meet at university and December 2015, when they reunite for Funmi’s daughter Destiny's, wedding. 

Even now, I do not understand the point of the lengthy flashback.

Details about the past—Damola’s tragic end, Zainab and Ahmed’s love story, Enitan’s elopement—are already woven into the present-day narrative. Anything left out can honestly be found in the ridiculously long Goodreads summary. 

The flashback reveals only a few new details, only one of which feels marginally relevant: Funmi basically stole Zainab’s first boyfriend, Damola.

To be more accurate, Funmi forces her way into Zainab’s social circle to get closer to Damola, and then Damola cheats on Zainab with her.

Now, if you think Zainab is brokenhearted by this, you would be wrong. By this point, Zainab is already crushing on her father’s protege, Ahmed and apparently doesn't mind being cheated on.

Needless to say, I did not care much about Damola's death, though the way he died brought back painful memories of a more recent peaceful protest turned massacre. 

The other significant thing we learn from the 1980s is that Charles, Enitan's soon-to-be ex-husband, grew up fetishizing Africa, and his feelings for Enitan may have evolved from that fetish. 

"he became obsessed with the mythos of Hemingway and the Africa that he loved, with those animals and that landscape, Africa as a battlefield, Africa as a stage for white men to display their masculine prowess. He loved Heart of Darkness too, with an intensity that he still couldn’t shake, a lot of colonial literature as well, and the depraved, bleak settings depicted by writers like J. M. Coetzee. In university, he finally expanded his repertoire, encountered Chinua Achebe for the first time, read Africanist critiques of Hemingway and the like. But that tendency to romanticize Africa was in his blood."

Were any of these details relevant enough to justify this detour? Not really.

The result is a story that pointlessly meanders even further away from an already unclear plot.

The flow breaks, and I ended up skim-reading, desperate to get back to the present.

Part 3

I was glad when the story returned to the present for the third part.

Here, the writing is still very good, and the description of the traditional wedding is immaculate. 

"Gradually, people began to enter the hall in twos and foursomes. Ogas strolled in, their bellies hidden by accommodating agbada. Aunties followed in resplendent gèlès, holding sequined and beaded and brocaded bags. A few young mothers carried wide-eyed babies in their Sunday best. Preening twentysomething women in tight sleeveless dresses highlighting slim waists and round bosoms walked unsteadily on imposing heels, their gèlès framing their faces like halos."

Still, I could not wait for the climax.

I kept waiting for something to happen, because there was so much that could happen.

Enitan and Charles are headed for a divorce, but they’re chatting like best friends. Would they actually go through with it?

Funmi’s husband, Yinka, is constantly on his phone, and Funmi is starting to suspect that he’s cheating. Well, is he?

What about Zainab and her bedridden husband, Ahmed?

What about Enitan and Remi?

Dele and Destiny?

I couldn't wait to see how all these strands would come together.

Well, they don't.

The ending arrived so quickly that I had to double-check that my copy was complete.

If I had known that the robbery at the five percent mark would be the most dramatic moment in the story, I might have DNFed it right there.

Themes

Dele Weds Destiny is, at its core, a celebration of female friendship.

As someone who recently graduated from university and is now grappling with the difficulty of maintaining adult friendships, this resonated with me.

We never know how far the search for greater prospects will carry us, especially in our twenties.

Another prominent theme is the relationship between mothers and daughters: often fragile, perilous relationships where both parties are inept in how to translate their love into action without losing face. 

For the most part, the book maintains a neutral tone.

Only one situation is written with a firmly negative tone: the white characters fetishization and romanticization of Africa, and the way they treat Africans like some kind of rarity. 

It reminded me of the first time I traveled internationally.

My sisters and I had our hair in long, waist-length braids, adorned at the ends with colorful beads, as was the trend at the time.

Even from the plane, people stared.

At one point, when I stood up to use the restroom, a woman approached and reached for my hair without asking, offering compliments that made me feel both grateful and uncomfortable.

Throughout the rest of the trip, people called our accents cute, ignoring our frustration at having to repeat ourselves three or four times to be understood.

When we wore our Ankara dresses to church, people came up to us and asked to take pictures of us (declined) or with us (accepted). They asked if we were from Africa, as if Africa were a country. 

I was a child then, not even ten, grateful for the attention but unable to understand the discomfort I felt underneath that gratitude. 

Final Thoughts

Underwhelming.

Even character-driven stories must strike a balance between plot and character, and this one just doesn't.

The fact that it is so well written only makes the lack of payoff more frustrating.

Even the premise of friends reuniting after thirty years exaggerates the actual situation.

It would have been more intriguing if they truly had not spoken to each other in thirty years. Instead, over the last thirty years, they have had an active group chat, kept in touch regularly, and spent time together, albeit sporadically.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about their situation.

Maybe that’s why the story meanders without a point.

3 out of 5 stars.  

Despite being well-written, it reads more like a prologue or the pilot episode of a larger series, introducing a cast and a world that might later feature in a longer, more complex story.

Unfortunately, as a standalone, it's just not that great.

Who Is It For?

If you like quiet, character-driven stories, this might be a decent enough read, but it is easily forgettable.