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Someday, Maybe by Onyi Nwabineli

Literary fiction

Someday, Maybe

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Onyi Nwabineli, on your first book!

by Onyi Nwabineli

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Quick take

Prep the tissues. This emotional, devastatingly frank account of grief’s many faces will have you in your feelings.

Melancholy

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Heavy_Read

    Heavy read

  • Illustrated icon, Slow_Build

    Slow build

  • Illustrated icon, Sad

    Sad

  • Illustrated icon, Serious

    Serious

Synopsis

A stunning and witty debut novel about a young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of new friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.

Here are three things you should know about my husband:

1. He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.

2. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because . . .

3. On New Year’s Eve, he committed suicide.

And here is one thing you should know about me:

1. I found him.

Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.

Content warning

This book contains mentions of suicide.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Someday, Maybe.

Someday, Maybe

PROLOGUE

Around the time my husband was dying, I was chipping ice from the freezer in search of the ice cube tray wedged in the back. But only because I was taking a break from filling his voice mail with recriminations about his failure to communicate his whereabouts. The memory of this along with countless other things would weave together the tapestry of blame I laid upon myself in the days and weeks after his death.

Therefore, in the spirit of continued honesty, here are three things you should know about my husband:

1. He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.

2. He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because. . .

3. On New Year’s Eve, he killed himself.

And here is one thing you should know about me:

1. I found him.

Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.

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Why I love it

Dear BOTM Reader, consider this a warning from me to you. Someday, Maybe will break your heart.

Over and over.

But you’ll keep reading because it is a beautifully visceral, soul-drenching pain that can only lead to catharsis. Grief is a fickle beast, and Onyi Nwabineli has caged it with her gorgeous prose in this devastating, witty debut.

Eve has suffered the unimaginable. In the aftermath of her husband’s suicide, she is adrift in an ocean of grief and guilt. She’s drowning in familial expectations and buckling under the anger she struggles to keep bottled inside. It’s a cocktail of emotions that Eve is thoroughly unprepared to handle. She is doing her best, but her best isn’t measuring up. Not for her well-meaning family, not for her mother-in-law (who blames Eve for the loss of her only son), and not for Eve herself. Desperate for the space to breathe—or even to remember how to—Eve pushes everyone away. At times you’ll want to shake her and remind her that the people who love her have her best interests at heart. You’ll also want to pull her loved ones aside and tell them that everyone experiences sorrow differently.

Despite Eve’s despair and her battle to redefine her place in the world, this novel is ultimately about hope and the resilience of the human spirit. It’s about family, the ones we’re born into and the ones we find along the way. Someday, Maybe celebrates the transformative power of love with heart and humor, and it will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

Member ratings (7,929)

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Literary fiction
View all
Intermezzo
The Book of George
Real Americans
Wellness
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
Annie Bot
Bear
Mercury
True Biz
Family Happiness
The Husbands
The Lady Waiting
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Good Material
The Bullet Swallower
Happy All the Time
Alice Sadie Celine
Let Us Descend
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shark Heart
Transcendent Kingdom
Hello Beautiful
Dominicana
What's Mine and Yours
The Unsettled
Ask Again, Yes
Vladimir
Infinite Country
The Prophets
Normal People
The Verifiers
Salvage the Bones
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
I Have Some Questions for You
Black Buck
The History of Love
Age of Vice
Paper Names
The Light Pirate
The Secret History
The Kite Runner
Memorial
The Half Moon
Happiness Falls
The Gifted School
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Knockout Queen
Little Monsters
Yerba Buena
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Free Food for Millionaires
A Burning
The Mothers
The Water Dancer
Small Country
The Sympathizer
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Lot
An American Marriage
The Animators
The Mars Room
Exit West
White Fur
Woman No. 17
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Eat Only When You're Hungry
Rainbirds
A Ladder to the Sky
Golden Child
The Goldfinch
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
& Sons
The Association of Small Bombs
Lolly Willowes
All Grown Up
Marlena
Signal Fires
Someday, Maybe
Woman of Light
Marrying the Ketchups
The Shards