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External reviews:
- Kirkus Reviews – https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nnaziri-ihejirika/rainy-season1/
- The Sword of Damocles (blog) – http://theswordofdamocles.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/a-rainy-season-hell-on-earth/
- Chxta – http://ynaija.com/book-review-rainy-season-collection-well-crafted-personal-stories/
A Rainy Season 
As a writer, one of my more trusted educators instructed us to try as hard as we could to stay away from “I” when writing articles and such. In other words, don’t make it all about YOUR opinion, including with reviews (which are usually centred on YOUR opinion). It is very hard to do; however, it has proven to be really good advice, as it somehow makes you more objective. But “rules were meant to be broken,” at least once in a while. This is one of those times.
A Rainy Season is the perfect example of “writing what you know” and putting the perfect spin on a reality inspired fiction. It is an easy read which is great for an educational book. Yes, educational. As an African myself, I realized just how much I didn’t know about West Africa, Nigeria in particular.
The book’s formula made it the page turner that it is, with each character piling on the curiosity. Each chapter reveals a bit about how some of the characters are connected bringing the story to full circle.
As an avid reader, I tend to read books that I enjoy more than once – usually over a span of years. Editing A Rainy Season gave me the chance to read a book I quite enjoyed, over and over again within the allotted time I had to edit it.
If you haven’t read it, pick up a copy. You won’t regret it.
Interesting perspective of how each character in the book is shaped by the political atmosphere of Nigeria in the late 90’s.
I like how there was a small degree of separation in between the characters in the book. Even though each persons story is completely different from the next, I like how there was always a piece that connected you to the other that made the story complete
Even though i have very little understanding of the dynamics of Nigerian politics in the late 90’s, it made for interesting reading.
And if you don’t understand any of the slang terms in the book, the author put a glossary in the back, I am glad he did that cause I had to look up a few words.
Pick up your copy if you haven’t yet. I don’t think you will be disappointed.
This is an interesting novel, based on the stories of eight people living in Lagos, Nigeria at the time when President Sani Abacha died.
This is an excellent, well-written and very interesting book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The book certainly shows some of the conflicts and problems facing Nigeria, whether in 1998 or now and the idea of doing this via several individuals living in Lagos is a very good one.
There are two things I would like to have seen done differently.
Firstly, it’s natural to want happy endings for the more sympathetic characters in a book but, given Nigeria’s social, economic and political woes, I don’t feel that the happy endings here are realistic.
Secondly, I like the use of some Nigerian terms and some Pidgin English in dialogue. But Mutiu’s chapter could be all in Pidgin English to reflect his lack of education. Kurdi’s could contain Gospel references and Biblical quotations of the kind evangelical hypocrites do actually use a lot.
I would certainly recommend this as a good book to read and also as one that could be read with pleasure several times over.