Kemi's Journal: Of Life, Love and Everything

Interesting and easy read dealing with important issues of life, love and faith. I first read this book 14 years ago, loved it then and loved it again today when I read it again.

This book is just perfect

Kemi hits the spotGreat writing comes in many forms: Abidemi Sanusi has developed a wonderfully accessible, light touch to convey a slew of incredibly difficult truths about being young and female in today's world. Kemi wants everything: loving man, success in her work life, and to top it all, a faith that gives her direction and works. We're led along the path to true love on all (most?) counts as Kemi learns about the place that generosity, giving, and compromise (or more like, acceptance, of foibles, of limitations, of other people) have to play in it all. And throughout, the story romps along, gathering up characters and finally neatly binding them all into the plot, everyone playing their part, even the guy she sees every morning at the bus stop. I loved the portraits of friends, parents (at the crisis point they fight, so realistic, over Kemi's choices), and workmates. She brought it out that those you meet in the workplace can be really unpleasant to be with, yet work alongside them you must. And that work (Kemi is in marketing) can look pretty meaningless: Why are we doing this? Add to the mix, Kemi is mixed-race, and a woman, and a Pentecostal, and Sanusi gives her a whole set more of barriers and prejudices to fear. What did I find less than perfect? Sometimes I felt the progression of the account she works on ("Singing Diapers"!) was rather slow, in terms of the progress of the story. And not being a Pentecostal, not all the little Bible quotes above each entry (her Scripture reading for the day) made sense to me in terms of the entry. However, that's to do with me, not the book. Sometimes they did. At the same time, her portrait of being part of a church community was pretty perfect: as was the agonising that went on in Kemi's mind, trying to do the right thing by everybody and herself! Among others, a must-read for parents of young adults!

Some reviewers have made the inevitable comparison with Bridget Jones' Diary and there is certainly a lightness of tone and a delightful sense of humour particularly in the earlier stages of the book that bear very favourable comparison with Helen Fielding's works. The writing is accomplished and the pace works well.It was very refreshing to read a book about twenty-somethings from a Christian character's perspective. It will be invaluable to newer Christians or younger people coming to faith to see that following Christ is not about having it all sewn up, that there are struggles and dilemmas in a life of faith; that not all the answers are clear cut or easy.The book does take a darker turn two thirds in which works better if you haven't read the back cover (it gives it away rather!) and this gives a great deal of food for thought, particularly to a generation who have been taught that they can have it all.A very hard to put down, thoughtful, refreshing read that is something I wouldn't normally have picked up, but which I'm glad I did. My only difficulty in reading was that whilst Kemi's thoughts and feelings and spiritual struggles ring very true, I've never come across a church, pastor or boyfriend as perfect as the ones this character has the blessing to encounter! But perhaps one can have too much realism...