Little Rot

by Akwaeke Emezi

A thrilling new novel from the bestselling, award-winning Akwaeke Emezi, about five friends trying to outrun and outmatch a powerful, underground world

One weekend. The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city. A breakup that starts a spiral. A party that goes awry. A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed. Little Rot is a whirling journey through the city’s dark side, told through the eyes of five people, each determined to run from the twisted powers out to destroy them.

Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from his loss, visits a sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, intersect with the three old friends as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt underworld, they’re all looking for a way out of the trouble they’ve instigated, driven by loss and fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them. They careen madly in the face of the poison of power, sexual violence, murder, betrayals. Little Rot tests how far these five will go to save each other—or themselves—when confronted by evil, culminating in a shattering denouement.

With each novel, with each creation, Akwaeke Emezi shows their genius as a storyteller, as a visionary force who has created a thrilling tale of sex, power, and deviance in Little Rot. You won’t be able to look away.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Thriller, LGBT, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

276 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 2024

Reviews

[BookOfCinz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelming, amateur, one-dimensional and chaotic

This may be my least favourite book by Akwaeke. Trigger Warning: Lots of sexual abuse.
In Little Rot we are taken to a city in Nigerian where we meet four friends. The book opens with Kalu taking his long time girlfriend Aima to the airport because she refuses to live in sin and he is not ready for marriage. After much back and forth Aima decides its time to move away, however she can’t seem to get on the plane so she stays with her friend in Nigeria.

Kalu, unaware that Aima didn’t get on the plane decides to go to sex party hosted by his best friend Ahmed. These parties are highly exclusive, invitation only and caters to Nigeria’s rich, everything must be discreet and everyone looks the other way even at things that are illegal. Kalu makes a snap decision and attacks a guest at the party and that puts everyone in danger.

The book explores what happens when powerful people are put in position where they don’t feel powerful. How corruption, power, sex and money can get you everything.

I am not sure what I expected from this book but this was not it. I was reading it and I thought, “this book feels very lacklustre, it’s not the book I expected them to write, it feels ordinary and lacking any form of substance.” The book felt too long, it was insanely predictable, often times it felt like the author was trying to shock me which made me roll my eyes. It felt so pedantic and overdone. It felt amateur, that's what I will say.


I guess you can say I didn’t like this one.

[Laura Lovesreading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Damn.... Akwaeke you really do march to the beat of your own drum, don't cha???

In Little Rot we start of with Aima and Kalu, they have broken up and Aima decides to return back to London from Nigeria. But at the airport she has a change of heart and decides to go and stay with her best friend to clear her head. What starts of so innocent turns into a weekend of chaos for Aima, Kalu, their friends Ijendu and Ahmed. Plus two side characters Ola and Souraya (sex workers) find themselves all up in the mix up too!

Someone pass me an aspirin 😖

I'm going to keep this review short and sweet and I'm so glad this was not a long ass book because "What the actual F%&k did i read??" This book is sooooo triggering in so many ways that at one point i didn't think i would be able to complete it.
The plot was way to chaotic and confusing at times because they was so many characters in the mix with their own personal issues that i just couldn't keep up.
I kid you not 70% of the book is just sex, with added sex filled with more sex. I'm not a prude in the slightest but i must admit, it did have me wincing quite a few times. I just cant comfortably sit and read about minors being abused.
I feel like i went through a stomach churning rollercoaster ride, expecting a big climax and it just ended so.... FLAT!
On a positive note, i really enjoyed the queer rep in this book. It was so unapologetically queer! The culture/ dark nightlife of 'New Lagos' was interesting to read and i enjoyed the Nigerian 'pidgin' language used by the characters making them sound more authentic.

I'm conflicted with whether to recommend this or not, because its not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But if you are used to this authors work you already know they like to write OUTSIDE of the box so tread into this one lightly and PLEASE check trigger warnings.


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⋆｡°✩pre read⋆｡°✩
I’m not sure what to expect with this one…
But I’m very excited!! 💚💛💜




Thank you to Penguin Random House for gifting me a physical copy of this book.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“ Little Rot is an absolutely unhinged story set in the underbelly of a Nigerian city.”

say no more, i am sold.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesus Christ, I could not put this down.

The action is nonstop. It’s a horrifyingly dark work of fiction. Murders, sex parties, lust, assault, secrets, blackmail, betrayal, corruption. Let’s just say it’s got trigger warnings galore. It won’t be everyone’s bag, and that’s okay. Some readers will hate it; it is what it is. It worked for me though, for two reasons: 1) I’m drawn to dark stories that really go for it, and 2) it was a constant jolt of adrenaline.

The story takes place over the course of one fated weekend. We find the young elites unravelling within the underbelly of Nigeria. To think that this all starts off with an innocent break up between two people. The consequences of that decision opens up a rabbit hole that forever changes the lives of these two people and their respective friends.

Several of the plot points/themes in the novel will make you want to take multiple hot showers. Believe me. The book has the ability to make you feel both guarded and voyeuristic at the same time. Some of the sordid themes consists of sexual coercion, sex with minors, and religious hypocrisy. You’ll be tainted. Tread carefully.

I blew through this thing. All five main characters are self-destructive beings; living their lives fast and loose, while associating themselves with extremely shady individuals. It’s a continuous wild ride. A full-on psychosexual thriller. A propulsive page-turner that will make you wonder just how much more batshit crazy territory we’ll be getting into.

My only criticism is that I wish Emezi fleshed things out a bit more; made the story even more visceral (I know they’re capable: ie: FRESHWATER). Then again, I did like the frenetic, breakneck speed of it all. The writing isn’t lyrical as say FRESHWATER, and the plotting isn’t lush and sweeping as THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI, the prose is as blunt and cold as the subject matter. It works.

LITTLE ROT (appropriate title, btw) is a never-ending nightmare. All the characters try so hard to be in control, but joke’s on them. Emezi, you’re unstoppable.

[Candi]

Another abandoned book! I found a lot to like about Emezi’s You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, so I was excited to get my hands on this one. Turns out I don’t like reading about sex parties after all. Especially when they include under age girls exploited by men. I’m confident that Emezi had an excellent point to make, but I’m not the one that needs a lesson here so digesting this seemed unnecessary. Cool titles for their books though! Definitely catches my attention each time.

[Hannah (hngisreading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay so. What the fuck. Not ready to rate this yet. Not ready to review this yet. It’s a difficult read & that’s the point.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edit: June 2024. Wow I just reread this review and I apparently completely forgot that I was reading an Akwaeke Emezi novel. I treated this like a regular book which is absolutely a mistake. So my apologies. This was a bad review. I can't believe I said "hey write something more focused" as if I had never read any of their other novels.

So let's regroup. What we have here is Emezi diving into the underbelly of society. Imagine you could do something like Eyes Wide Shut except homosexual subtext becomes text (thank god) and the nefarious secrecy is actually real and bad in a way that has consequences and the world is a place where sex can show you who you are or unravel you or be the tool you need to survive or be your biggest secret.

Yes, it's violent and full to the brim of content warnings, but that is also the point. Because all of this is real and it's not just a fun little escape for rich people to indulge. Emezi forces us to see all of this through, to follow a handful of decisions through to their inevitable, terrible consequences. No one is safe, no one is pure, and almost everyone finds themselves in a position where they can inflict harm or pain on another person to save themselves or for no reason at all.

In the middle of all this chaos and suffering, we find moments of joy and connection and love. And maybe there isn't a utopian vision, because how can there be one in this world? But it is a place where we can fight for each other and ourselves and survive.

Original Review: It's best to experience this novel in the moment, not to look for the many pieces of it to come together into a cohesive whole. The book doesn't really let you know that this is how to read it, so I will tell you. The book starts you off from one point of view for so long that it seems that is what matters, when ultimately it is really secondary to the story its trying to tell. If anything, Aima exists only to try and root us in some kind of morality and normality so that we can then be pulled out of it for the rest of the book into the underbelly it really cares about.

Emezi brings a lot of their strengths to these characters. Once we set Aima to the side, then there is trauma and violence and longing and most of all, sex. Most of them have a casualness they bring with them, an ability to look past the worst of the world they are in. For Kalu this world is an escape from an otherwise respectable life, for Ahmed it is a world he is trying to control for his own power, and for Ola it is her best shot at a life of security despite the risks.

There is, for just a moment, a vision of another world here. In this other world, sex is empowering and joyful and communal. Ahmed's version may look like something exciting and joyful, a place for people to feel safe in their desires, but this is only the outermost circle and there is much more the farther you go down. There are a few moments of pure longing and desire, but they can never last.

What does Emezi want to bring us here? What are they trying to explore? It's never entirely clear. Moments with these characters feel emotionally rich and complex, and the story is almost always very queer. As they continue to play with genre, there is something of the erotic thriller in this story, but I would love to see something a little more focused from them.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It is a wild ride and not for the faint of heart. I think this book is going to be very polarizing, especially for folks who need likable characters. You're not getting that here. My biggest gripe is that the pacing stalls out (a bit long) in the middle third and I saw the ending coming miles and miles away.

[BookishByTammi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure depravity but somehow also pure entertainment
Check triggers because I’m pretty sure it’s all in here but as someone that can pretty much read anything this was pure chaos and I was engaged throughout all of it!

This felt like watching a tv drama show with so many messy characters that are all kind of linked in some way. There wasn’t one character that I didn’t like reading about (least favourite POV was Souraya but the insight she gave into Ahmed made her chapters worth it)

I liked that it was literally set over 24hrs, broken down by hours, I got to know each character so well over that time and Emezi’s writing was easy yet enchanting setting the scene and building the characters flawlessly

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vicious, relentless little novel about sex, shame and violence: Emezi takes readers to a fictionalized version of Nigeria's largest city, called "New Lagos", where we meet Aima and Kalu. The couple met in Houston, but back home, they drift apart, as Aima rediscovers her Christianity and longs to get married, which Kalu refuses. The focus of the text is on the roughly 28 hours after the break up, with both Aima and Kalu seeking distraction in New Lago's seedy underbelly, a sphere of the city governed by the title-giving moral rot that threatens to permeate the soul of everyone who gives in to its hedonistic and often brutal diversions.

So it's rather strange that there is quite some criticism of the book stating that it's full of cynicism and nihilism, when in fact, it's obviously a text about people getting carried away in an a-moral hellscape and then becoming rotten themselves. You could actually interpret the whole thing as a religious or spiritual allegory. While Kalu attends a sex party and discovers that his friend Ahmed is involved in illegal transactions, Aima joins her friend Ijendu for a party night that also gets out of control.

What saves the novel from becoming oppressively moralistic is the language: The descriptions are atmospheric and the psychological writing unsettles with tangible emotional movements that change due to context. E.g., there is a lot of (also queer) sex, sometimes consensual, sometimes not, sometimes legal, sometimes not, all scenes with very different, but equally intense vibes. Minor characters include two sex workers and a pastor, all involved in all kinds of debauchery.

The juxtaposition of true, deep, noble feelings with base instinct and relentless violence creates the tension that the text lives from, and some of the stark scenes are reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino and Ryū Murakami. A not fully successful, but utterly fascinating read.

[Gabriella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm…not quite what I was expecting! As everyone knows, I have no problem hatereading Akwaeke Emezi’s work (see: the absolute tomfoolery that is You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty or my thoughts on Bitter, the disappointing and derivative prequel to Pet.) However, their eighth (ICK) book doesn’t warrant a full rant review. Little Rot is nowhere near as awful as Akwaeke’s worst novels, but also falls short of their strongest books (in my opinion, the aforementioned Pet and to a lesser extent, The Death of Vivek Oji).

This was a confounding experience
To Akwaeke’s credit, Little Rot certainly defies any easy categorizations—they’ve created a novel blend of chaos and mediocrity. I really enjoyed Book of Cinz’s review, which notes that Little Rot felt “insanely predictable, often times it felt like the author was trying to shock me which made me roll my eyes. It felt so pedantic and overdone…amateur, that's what I will say.” These sentiments perfectly explain the experiential rollercoaster this book will evoke in its more discriminating readers. (At this point, I’m convinced that Akwaeke’s hive would 5-star rate a published collection of their iCloud notes.) This book is doing the most while not doing enough, and its author seems to suffer both from an endless imagination for evil, and a lazy execution of said evil. One would hope that a book like this would surprise readers, and not merely shock them.

I got through this book in one sitting, which is usually a good thing, but in this case, it seemed like an unfair trap. The inevitable collision course towards Little Rot’s final scene sneaks up on you right as you’re getting used to some of the characters. To be fair, I believe that’s what the author intended—they wanted this story to feel like a 2.5-hour thriller that takes up part of your afternoon, and stays with you well into in the night as you feel a bit icky about what you’ve just watched. Unfortunately, Little Rot is just too forgettable to achieve this effect.

Things I did like
I can’t deny that there is a cinematic quality to this novel, and it pays off in the moments where we encounter characters who have been (relatively) well-developed. I loved the split-second decision in the scene when Aima and Ijendu entered a certain character’s home, and almost immediately sprung into action. These moments made me think of my favorite scenes in How to Get Away With Murder, where the high stakes and stress of a situation shine a positive light on the characters who seem the most competent in “fixing the mess.” Once the smoke clears, you shamefully realize is that “the mess” in question is killing, and the people you are now rooting for are the ones who have disappeared the actual victims. Back to that earlier scene, the unraveling of Ijendu’s mystique was particularly delightful. You see how much we’ve underestimated this party girl, and I honestly would have enjoyed reading about “the first time” she was involved with something like this (I stood up straight in my seat when the pastor said that!)

I was also fascinated by the moral geography of this book, namely Akwaeke’s argument that the city’s rot seeps into the behavior of its residents. This “rot” is most evident in the characters’ constant power grabs and attempts at social climbing, be that through the extortion or outright elimination of their competitors. At one point in Little Rot, a character almost begins to brag that a very famous person put out a hit on him, as “it was almost impressive to have someone like that take such a personal, if homicidal, interest in you” (Kindle Locations 2775-2776). The assassination and murder schemes in this book feel just as intimate as the sexual interactions, partially because I think they are often coming from a similar set of motivations. For instance, one discussion of a murder plot occurs amidst some serious flirtation:

“This pastor has more power than you.” Souraya didn’t realize she’d said the words out loud until she heard them and saw the answering grimace on Ahmed’s face. “I hate hearing it that way, but you’re not wrong.” His jaw clenched. “Fuck.” (Kindle Locations 2271-2273)”

While we could have some better-written dialogue here, the characters’ bluntness works for the most part. Akwaeke has stated that this book is about the nakedness of immorality in Lagos, and how that differs from the artifice around corruption in the West. In other parts of the book, I think they show this bare corruption with great clarity:

“Privately, Souraya thought Kalu sounded like a rich and careless man who probably didn’t deserve the help. New Lagos had so many girls who needed it more, who probably needed help precisely because of men like him.” (Kindle Locations 2302-2304).

Quotes like this reveal the part I really did enjoy about this book: there is a constant shuffling of the food chart and power ladder, switching back and forth in characters’ minds as they perform the mental math on who to align with, who to lend courtesy to, and who to annihilate. It takes an astute author to capture these characters’ unfiltered calculations in a way that’s immediately recognizable to readers. So in this respect, I guess you could say that for once, Akwaeke has actually succeeded at placing us inside what I have come to see as their trademark bastardized ethics.

Things I was disappointed in
As the quotes above indicate, the quality of their writing is just all over the place. ☹ Sometimes, I thought their descriptions worked really well, and then a paragraph later, they completely lost me. The sex scenes that are interspersed with murder plots and confessions felt just cartoonishly villainous, and I hated Ahmed’s pet name for Souraya almost as much as I hated Alim’s for Feyi.

I also never really understand Kalu’s motivations and feelings toward another central character. We have lots of passages where the other characters are musing on how he might feel about this person, but never receive a straight reflection from him. It felt like another instance where the author needed to “show, not tell”—particularly because why else include him as a POV character?!? This leads me to another complaint, which is that I think Akwaeke had too many POV characters for such a brief story. I felt like we spent much of the book in Ahmed’s head, in a way that made sense and was helpful. But then other characters who were equally relevant to the story (Ola, Kalu) felt relatively cut out of the narrative minus a few chapters, which led to the lack of clarity and anticlimactic ending.

In addition to us not receiving enough focus from some of the POV characters, and too much focus on others (Souraya always felt one-dimensional to me), I was quite surprised by the choice to exclude Machi as a narrator. Her lack of agency seems to be a moral connector throughout this story, but her actual voice or thoughts are stunningly absent from the narrative. It’s an interesting choice in a story that wants to make a point about how sidelined people like Machi are in this world.

I also felt that Little Rot does nothing to challenge the continually basic depiction of masculinity in these sorts of “noir” books. The male action characters continue to be deeply underimagined when it comes to their emotional range, and this often stifles the character development potential of their love interests, too. I’ve written more about this in my reviews of All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby and Femi Kayode’s Gaslight, which interestingly enough, also includes an “evil Nigerian megapastor” storyline. All this particularly limits Souraya’s story, because of her connection to Ahmed. I feel like Akwaeke tried to keep this from being a cut and dry "knight in shining armor saves the helpless damsel" situation, but it wasn’t enough. Sure, they show us that Ahmed is no knight, he isn’t “helping” Souraya for pure reasons, and Souraya has imposed distance in their relationship so that she can better stand independently. However, we don’t meet the character in the middle of her years of independence—we meet her on Friday morning, and by Saturday evening, she is back crying in this man’s arms.

The damsel in distress trope is also reinforced by this huge disparity in how the characters process the acts they are seeing. It feels like the women (Souraya and Aima, particularly) are the only ones coming apart at the seams, but Ahmed’s comparable moment of “weakness” is a bit of shock and then back into rage and action mode. Sure, you have female counterbalances like Ijendu and Ola who are dependable even in these dangerous moments. However, Akwaeke provides no real counterbalance in the form of male characters who “crack under pressure” with the same manner of vulnerability that you see with Souraya or Aima. I just would’ve liked to see “both, and”, if that makes sense.

End note: Akwaeke continues to be delusional about their publishing assembly line, and readers are putting the battery in their back.
So, here we are at the end of their eighth book in like five years or so, and there is no foreseeable end to the Akwaeke Emezi industrial complex. While preparing to write this review, I read the Elle interview for Little Rot, and was dismayed to see that Akwaeke truly doesn’t get that the problem isn’t the quantity of their books, it’s the ever-dwindling quality of them. Their assertion that they have “zero flops” within their body of work is patently false, and a real testament to the author-as-influencer and readers-as-followers cycle that has occurred thanks to BookTok or Bookstagram. As we speak, there is another “little rot” going on: in the minds of all the readers who have become mindless stans for this author and others like them, and in the authors who are embracing their own megalomania thanks to all this uncritical praise.

It brings to mind this video of Fran Lebowitz that has been circling around. Fran describes the dearth of connoisseurs following the AIDS epidemic, and how this is connected to the lowered standards for modern art, despite the never-ending increase in artistic exports. Fran’s argument is that the audience is just as influential in cultural production as the artist, and in some ways, without an audience of high standards, the art will continue to suffer. To me, it seems that the Akwaeke hive’s standards are basically how much clickbait and smut can be found inside these books, and on how attractive Akwaeke looks promoting said books on their Instagram. I just do not see any of their superfans engaging with their books as actual works of art—they are moreso engaging these books as new toys or fixations. And again, all that is all fine!!

My only issue is that people will do all this, AND ALSO try to sell the rest of us on Akwaeke’s literary prowess as an author!!! I hate it because you literally can’t have it both ways. ☹ The insistence that these books are technically sound, and not just an opportunity to indulge in mess, bothers me deep in my soul. I think often about the authors who likely would have book deals right now if more of the literary world was just a bit more honest that Akwaeke cannot do it all—and they are no longer doing much with excellence.

With all this said, I guess I’m part of the problem, because even a hateread of their books is a continued read! At the same time, we are still very limited when it comes to Black queer fiction that is NOT YA, and I just know someone who isn’t trying to write nineteen books at once could’ve delivered a truly enjoyable version of this concept. Sadly, until that more talented and less egotistical writer gets their book deal, I will be seated waiting for what comes next from the author we are stuck with.

TWs a few lines below here
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TW: copious sexual violence, child abuse (including sexual), murder, unnegotiated BDSM, and religious violence

[LaToya Lee]

What did I just read 😩 I don’t even know how I would rate this. I will say that some of the content in this book was..disturbing. Once the story got going, I predicted a lot of it - especially the ending (I’m not sure what that says about my mind…)
PLEASE check the triggers.

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling, compulsively readable, utterly f*cked up little book.

My best friend told me this was a Nigerian soap opera, and I couldn’t have said it any better.

[Margaret Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw someone rated this a 1 star without any review before the book came out and Akwaeke is my favorite author so this review is to balance that out... can't wait to read this year, no doubt it will be incredible

[Rach A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

THERE IS A COVER I REPEAT THERE IS A COVER

Some may say, Rachel calm down, but I SAY *what-is-wrong-with-you-have-you-not-heard-about-the-new-Akwaeke-Emezi-book-here-to-ruin-us-as-we-beg-it-to-in-2024*

——

Excuse me whilst I just incoherently scream from now until June because we’re getting A NEW AKWAEKE EMEZI BOOK IS THIS A DREAM

[Queralt✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alright, let’s just start by saying Akwaeke Emezi writes beautifully. Their grocery shopping list probably reads like poetry.

This is my first time reading their fiction, I’ve only read their memoir thing, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir. And as I was reading Little Rot, I kept thinking of something they talk about in their memoir. In Dear Senthuran, Emezi explains how she ended up writing Pet: they were offered a lot of money in exchange for writing a YA novel, so they did. I suspect this novel is a result of something similar because I found Little Rot to be beautifully written but not much more than a half-cooked idea with the only goal to shock/upset readers.

Little Rot probably has a plot. I’ve read the synopsis a couple of times and I guess I see that in the book, sure. But this is just a well-written work of fiction about sexual abuse and sexual exploitation. That’s it. It’s unnecessarily sexual and it just keeps the abuse/exploitation on repeat.

The moments with the characters are very raw, emotional, and queer - that’s where Emezi’s writing shines. But I’m not someone who cares about characters after making bad decisions in the midst of a bunch of sex scenes. Even the background bits and character-building stuff it's just a lot of telling without much showing in my opinion. The story is just simply too unfocused to make sense for me. Even at the end when something happens and the story becomes sort of focused because of the mess going on, it still feels like lust is the focal point of it all, which is not for me.

2 stars. Check trigger warnings before reading. I only recommend this for people who like writing over anything else and enjoy reading about sex (and don’t mind sexual abuse and exploitation). (I also recommend it to people who want to stop time. I had this book as my gym audiobook and it made my workouts feel so long.)

Edit - Something that I had in my mind while reading this book was the concept of compulsory sexuality. I know this is supposed to be literary fiction and it's almost impossible to read literary fiction without sex, but at the same time, this is a book about queer people. Female empowerment has been associated with the idea of sexual freedom and having more sex, and in this book, I feel queerness is just so oversexualized (in the worst possible way). Like I don't see the point in oversexualizing the community. Like we've had decades of focusing on LGBTQIA+ and trauma porn, and now we're just moving into sexualizing. Am I being nitpicky? Yes. Ignore me lol

[Jonathan David Pope · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a line that stuck with me from Emezi’s 2022 novel, You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty. ““He loved people being messy as fuck, he said it was one of the best things about being human, how we could make such disasters and recover from them enough to make them into stories later”. 2 years later, Little Rot, feels like a continuation— but messier. This time following a group of characters in Nigeria working to understand their true desires. These characters attempt to navigate a world filled with corruption, without falling in too deeply— each realizing that this is easier said than done. Each character has a different gage of what is morally right, and how moral they even are. From a predatory pastor who has a thing for “barely legal girls”, to a re-converted Christian woman who is attracted to her bestfriend, but judges other folks for their same-sex attraction. But they’re all connected by one night, one party— where folks are free to indulge in whatever they desire.
Emezi does not shy away from the awfulness that of humanity, but also does not pass judgement. They are human, and working to discovery what that really even means.

[Willow Heath]

Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi's Little Rot is a novel as much about place as it is about people. The setting of New Lagos is a city of danger, hypocrisy, and corruption. We begin with two of several protagonists: Aima and Kalu, whose relationship has fallen apart and now Kalu is driving Aima to the airport, where she will board a plane to visit her parents in London. But she never gets on that plane, and Kalu doesn't know that.

My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/non-binary-bo...

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t expecting to love this as much as I did but wow, did this surprise me. A thrilling, beautifully written page turner. Celine said this is like a Nigerian soap opera and I so agree. Drugs, money, power, sex (lots of it) and people being messy, messy, messyyyy. The storyline and characters fit together perfectly throughout and I was never bored. I did have to google a lot of the terms used as I was unfamiliar with them, but it gave me a glimpse inside of Nigerian culture which I appreciate. Easily a five ⭐️ read for me.

[Bria Celest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew! This book is a wild ride and a tough read. It deals with a lot of big themes such as sexual violence, corruption, sexuality etc. I really enjoyed how the author made literally everyone unlikable in one way or another. The reveals we get of people’s pasts are done in a very subtle way rather than these overt explanations which give the reader that much weight like ‘wait did they just say—‘. I felt the idea of ‘rot’ and how environments and circumstances can really shape us was very well done. All these characters go through eye opening situations in a very short amount of time & it causes them to discover something about themselves that they may have always known & I felt like that idea is really intriguing.

It was a really good read & I’ll def be recommending.

[Morayo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no words(derogatory). I’m lying I do have words

The author described this book as “sheer fucking chaos” and they were right.

It is a page turner, I’ll give them that. In terms of actual plot, it was chaotic. I did not like it to be honest with you. Because all of that was for what??? Hmm?

I did not look up trigger warnings and i was not triggered ( I don’t know what this says about me and literature I consume). But please read trigger warnings for this one because wow.

I will still read anything the author writes

[DeannaReadsandSleeps · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoutout to riverhead books for my copy. Y’all be holding it DOWN!

Emezi’s writing, as usual, is spectacular. The content was as bleak and horrifying as I expected, but I could handle it, and I was locked in the whole way through.

Where it fell short for me was the inconsistency of Ahmed’s character, the speed-running important backstory, and the rushed way it all came together. I was a bit disappointed. I wanted him in particular, to darker.

Now I definitely loved the exploration of the shadows of society, the complications of sex work—both in the experiences and perceptions, and how salvation for you might not mean the same to someone else, no matter the morality or lack of.

I suspected the conclusion, which, fine I guess, and was okay with the fact that none of these characters were particularly likable, because, again, it’s a cold world, but I believe what the novel could have benefit most from was a little more time. 30-40 more pages even.

Overall, I still enjoyed it, and still recommend it for the wild ride it was for those who can handle the very dark content.

Emezi…your mind.

tw: rape, pedophilia, murder, abuse

[Rae | My Cousin’s Book Club · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was a WILD ride!

This book is certainly not for everyone, but I enjoyed it. Every chapter revealed a new and crazy plot twist that I just did not expect lol
Each of the characters are connected (which I loved about the book) and they're each a little rotten!

TW: Drug & Substance Use, Violence, Sexual Assault, R*pe, Sexually Explicit Scenes, Ped*philia, Death on page, Abuse

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ooooooof

[Isabel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tw for sexual violence & abuse

actually cannot even process how terrible this was - completely one dimensional characters, so much sexual abuse and violence it was nauseating—I literally had to flip through and scan final pages because I wanted it to be done so badly. As a fan very disappointed in not only the writing but portrayals of sex and relationships here.

[Tania (SorryImAlwaysBooked) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Brother uhhhhh … ewww brother

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought "The Death of Vivek Oji" was very well done and heralded the debut of a new and exciting writer. I didn't care as much for "You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty," which I thought was a waste of Emezi's considerable talent. I did commend them for trying a new genre, but that book just made them seem...ordinary. It was a generic romance novel with an unlikely couple at its core.

"Little Rot" is another departure, and I think we're traveling in the wrong direction. Perhaps Emezi has written and released too many books in too few years. Sometimes this book feels like a novice writer's first attempt at crafting a story. Describe what the people are wearing, what their skin looks like, etc. It's very elementary. None of the characters feel like real people, and their consciousnesses sound remarkably similar.

It's rare I read a book in the third person omniscient point of view where I don't care about a single character. Towards the end, one of our protagonists makes a supposedly gut-wrenching decision in order to save his own life, but it seems to me like it was a no-brainer. It feels like a man who holds grudges and cannot stand to be publicly disrespected gives up pretty easily because Emezi needed to end the book in ten pages.

Note: for those coming for me in the comments, i did not know Emezi is non-binary and corrected the pronouns. I do not know anything about their autobiographical details—my review was solely based on what I read.

[Evie · Rating 1 out of 5]

i wish i was kidding but the first 1/3 of this book is just people fucking. like it is soo much fucking before literally ANYTHING happens and then we get 2 plot points and the everyones fucking again. this has turned me into a conservative christian i’m joining in the anti sex scene discourse bc every time anything happened we then had to have a 10 minute sex scene immediately after i have never been more bored by sex

also genuinely do not think this accomplishes what it is attempting to because even the final reckoning is so pornographic and weird its distracting and eye-rolly

[Jenbebookish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aima & Kalu are a modern Nigerian couple that moved in together before getting married, one of them with a point to prove about going against tradition. When it becomes evident that Aima has found religion & is reverting back to her more traditional roots, their relationship quickly deteriorates, neither willing to budge. In a moment of clarity & determination, Aima decides she must leave to start a new life & live in accordance with what she deep down considers to be Godly & right, convinced that Kalu is never going to marry her when she has already made herself available to him & allowed him to have her in sin. She yearns for righteousness & grace.

Kalu, altho he loves Aima very much & has no definitive or specific reasoning for NOT wanting to marry Aima, he refuses simply on principle, reviling the traditional binds that limit or confine or restrict or circumscribe, prioritizing his independence & free will over all else, & when Aima walks away from him, he lets her leave. What follows is a long, twisted story about the way both of them ultimately wind up immersed in the dark underworld of Nigeria's criminals & sinners, realizing too late that they should have never parted.

I keep hearing this categorized as an erotic thriller, & I very much disagree with that categorization, I didn't find anything about this to be particularly erotic or "thrilling," at least not in the general sense of the words. There are undeniable sexual overtones, def LOTZ of people banging it out & all that, but not a single one of these encounters is taking place within a healthy, loving relationship, or even a newfound, fledgling one. In every single one of these encounters there is a major disparity in power, so much so that it's hard not to see these sexual encounters as trauma in the making. It's very weird, & off putting & falls more on the creepy & depraved side of things than the erotic or sexy or in any way titillating.

BUT...

One of the critiques for this book that I stumbled across quite often, was that people were putting it aside bc of it’s depiction of the sexual assaults of children, bc they did not want to read about something so horrifying & despicable. It’s not what they choose to put into their minds. But for me, I’ve always felt (for the most part anyway) that I think it serves me to be reminded of the way other people are forced to live. Not just so that I can appreciate my own life better, but just so that I can be reminded to care about these things. To pay attention to politics, & policy, to have informed opinions, to think about others other than myself. Bc it's really easy for me to spin the days away in amalgams of Game of Thrones and super hero comics & Trumpisms, or to spend my mental bandwidth on gas prices, inflation & interest rates, to vote based on who will give me the most money in the bank so l can take another vacation or buy every new iPhone instead of every OTHER, or a couple hundred more unread books. It's easy to spend my life thinking about myself to put it more simply, when I don't want to be that type of person. 'Little Rot' might be fiction, but Akwaeke Emezi is Nigerian, she's spent time in Laos & the places she writes about. This is a piece of fiction written by someone who knows what life is like in those parts, & that can help me to open my eyes & lend some of my thoughts & empathy to that part of the world.

For some, reading is a way to escape from the struggles of their daily lives & the ugliness of the world, but for me personally, those are NOT my motivations. I read just because I like to. I seek immersion in worlds & places & experiences outside of my own which includes the wondrous & the wonderful, the inspiring & the frightening, the mind-boggling & the mundane, the fantastical and the real. All of it interests me, even the dark & the distressing, & I would not turn away from it, even if it’s uncomfortable.

What 'Little Rot' does extremely well is paint a picture of a place & a people & an underworld that is separated from the decent & the dutiful by only a single bad decision, for some of us it’s impossible to imagine oneself in these dark places, it would take a series of turns, & missed exits & a hundred bad decisions before we found ourself there. But not for Kalu, & not for Aima either despite all her good intentions. The entire book takes place in a matter of 2 or 3 days total but it feels like weeks, the way the POV shifted so often & would just start in on a completely new experience made it hard for me to keep track of how much time had or hadn’t passed, it was hard not to feel like it was happening chronologically & not simultaneously & it wouldn’t be until someone said something or other that I’d orient myself & understand how little time had passed.

The weakest part of the book is by far the ending. It was actually weak enough for me to deduct an entire star. I’m not sure exactly what I would have preferred, bc having them end up together didn’t feel entirely right either. but it felt like your typical sense of a super rushed ending, an author that had a story & a struggle in her mind but no real idea of how it would play out. It was not only rushed, & abrupt, but anti climactic and just completely inexplicable. I can sorta kinda see where the author was going with the ending, what she was trying to do with Kalu’s thoughts but she should have written it out a bit more, given us a little more insight into his mindset. I understood what his mindset was supposed to be after having done the thing, but just for the sake of a cohesive narrative with a fleshed out ending, there needed to be more.

Still a strong 4 stars, but for those expecting a thriller, or “erotic” thriller or book, this likely won’t do it for ya. Fans of Akwaeke Emezi will probably enjoy, but I did still prefer the Death of & Freshwater.

[Hillary Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thoughts after reading Little Rot💭
(My thoughts are a little everywhere…like this book was 😆)

👉🏾This book was literal ROT
👉🏾Every character was problematic and made terrible decisions
👉🏾Some characters didn’t add anything to the story so I don’t remember some of the characters
👉🏾I liked how this book was short but it was….a lot. It was heavy.
👉🏾I loved how the author wrote the characters and their perspectives - Awakae definitely did their thing with the writing.
👉🏾IMO the pastor, Ahmed and Ola were the WORST characters.
👉🏾This book was a bit chaotic. There was a lot going on in just one weekend.
👉🏾Please check @storygraph for the trigger warnings before opening this book, like I said, this book was A LOT.
👉🏾I love seeing all the reviews on this book - they are definitely split and I think your either going to love or hate this book. You’ll just have to read it to experience it for yourself. Check out @whatamoaforead, @thatgoodgoodbook, @briisbooked and @jamaiciangirlreads reviews.
👉🏾I do think this book is important to read. Lots of representation and it also makes you look at the world differently. One decision can literally change your life forever.

It took me three weeks to read this book LOL Little Rot was….a lot. But I am grateful I read this book.