Author: Tolu’ A. Akinyemi

Website: https://tolutoludo.com/books/inferno-of-silence.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/toluakinyemi?s=20

Price: 11.29 (3.99 Kindle version)

Inferno of Silence is a collection of short stories that offers different points of view from the lives of black individuals. And before I actually get into anything thanks again to Tolu’ for sending me this review copy. It is MUCH appreciated.

Something I had to do for these stories that I haven’t had to do in a long time was utilize Google to find out what some terms meant due to me having a different cultural background from the author and there not really being an explanation for the meaning of some of the terms and things mentioned. For example, I had no idea what an Aso-ebi, mentioned in Inferno of Silence. All I was able to interpret right off hand was that it was an important item for the upcoming wedding ceremony. It would have been nice to have either a brief description of the terms or perhaps a glossary section in the back of the book.

Something I found myself longing for is more. I felt in some instances in stories like Black Lives Matter, I hadn’t grasp completely a central event of the story and was really looking forward to hearing more of it. With Black Lives Matter, there was a car accident and an event immediately following that had a significant effect on the story that followed that I felt I needed more of because I thought I had missed something between the start of the event and the aftermath. Overall, I felt myself just wanting to read more about the story in general.

My favorite of the short stories was Inferno of Silence, which focuses on the standards society has placed on the main character, Kunle, who is unhappy in his marriage. Even though I am a female and found myself just thinking I would never want to be in a relationship with someone if either of us felt the way this man does. It really shows how much people are pressured into staying with someone all for the sake of appearances and religion. I really enjoyed the insight to the beginnings of the relationship and the escalation of tensions and hidden personality elements slipping out. I loved little details like noticing how glasses were rearranged differently since his love had stayed over/practically moved in with him. This is one of two short stories I wish I could have had a good 200+ pages of.

Overall, I enjoyed majority of the stories in the book. The ones that I highly Recommend is Inferno of Silence and Blinded by Silence. I’ve added the Amazon link to purchase the book above as well as the author’s website in case you would like to purchase from there as well. I know I’m going to definitely look into whether the author has a full length book ready for my hard earned cash.

If you made it all the way down here, THANKS A BUNCH FOR READING! If you have any suggestions on how I can improve my posts feel free to let me know below.