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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

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  • 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 (8,059)

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Debut authors
View all
This Time Next Year
All We Were Promised
Shark Heart
Lessons in Chemistry
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
How to End a Love Story
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
The Stone Witch of Florence
A Flicker in the Dark
Honey
A Thousand Times Before
Ariadne
The Wishing Game
The Collected Regrets of Clover
The Days I Loved You Most
The Road of Bones
Thistlefoot
Dinner for Vampires
The Wives
Adelaide
Here After
Spitting Gold
The Ministry of Time
Did I Ever Tell You?
Middletide
The Teller of Small Fortunes
Northwoods
This Spells Love
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
The Storm We Made
Dirty Diana
Neighbors and Other Stories
The Husbands
More
You, Again
The Love Hypothesis
Red, White & Royal Blue
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Maame
The Circus Train
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Other Black Girl
Weyward
The Push
Age of Vice
The Lost Apothecary
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
One Day in December
Paper Names
We Are the Brennans
Black Cake
The Last Russian Doll
Olga Dies Dreaming
She Started It
Bringing Down the Duke
Somebody's Daughter
The Hacienda
Beautiful Country
Dearest
Lunar Love
Kaikeyi
River Sing Me Home
Love & Other Disasters
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
Sign Here
The Stranger Upstairs
Damnation Spring
The Maid
The Verifiers
A Little Hope
In Every Mirror She's Black
Taste Makers
Fiona and Jane
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Camp Zero
The Last Story of Mina Lee
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
My Body
Honey Girl
Vladimir
Big Friendship
Black Buck
White Ivy
Three Women
White Horse
Someday, Maybe
Peach Blossom Spring
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
The Animators
Marlena
Sharp Objects
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Small Country
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Golden Child
Small Fry
Too Much Is Not Enough
All That You Leave Behind
Doing Justice
Again, But Better
Free Food for Millionaires
Leaving the Witness
On The Clock
All of Us with Wings
Color Me In
Frankly in Love
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
The Water Dancer
Full Disclosure
When the Stars Lead to You
My Friend Anna
Trick Mirror
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
A Burning
The Boy in the Red Dress
Fleishman Is in Trouble
The Beauty in Breaking
The Comeback
The Prophets
Girl A
Arsenic and Adobo
What Comes After
Things We Lost to the Water
The Family
The Keeper of Night
Win Me Something
Four Weekends and a Funeral