Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi: Book Review

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi is a poignant and captivating family saga fiction novel.

Across three continents—Nigeria, England and Canada, Butter Honey Pig Bread vividly portrays the lives of three resilient Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. From as long as Kambirinachi could remember, she has always been able to see and hear things that no one else can and she firmly believes that she is an Ogbanje, a malicious spirit that plagues a family with miscarriages and babies being born but dying in childhood. Kambirinachi chooses life instead of death so that she could be around to love and take care of her human family but none of her other-worldly Kin have ever done something like that and her decision comes with severe repercussions for her loved ones.

Kambirinachi and her two daughters have drifted apart and they don’t have the tight bond they once enjoyed because Kehinde experienced a traumatic incident in her childhood—she couldn’t deal with the painful memories and it led her to move far away and cut off all contact with her mother and twin sister. A series of unexpected events bring love and creativity into Kehinde’s life and she is ready to create the family she has always wanted, even though she is afraid that she would be a terrible mother. On the other hand, Taiye is drowning in guilt because she felt as though she let Kehinde down when she needed her the most. Taiye also runs away—she runs away from difficult situations and long term relationships and she settles for casual flings with women in order for her to cope with her sister’s silence and the unbearable distance between them. She eventually learns how to deal with her guilt and loneliness through her love for creating culinary masterpieces and beekeeping.

After more than a decade of learning important life lessons and enduring heartbreaking losses, Taiye and Kehinde have finally returned home to Lagos.

Will Kambirinachi, Kehinde and Taiye be able to speak openly and honestly with each other so that they can heal from the wounds of the past and move on with their lives?

Pros And My Favourite Parts

I can’t believe that this literary gem is Francesca Ekwuyasi’s debut novel because the writing is brilliant in every sense of the word and the characters are relatable, flawed and fully fleshed out. I’m a foodie to the core and this story is definitely a delicious love letter to my belly! I just wanted to feast on all the mouth-watering Nigerian meals that were mentioned in this book, especially the egusi soup, jollof rice and mosa (plantain puffs). Plus, I love the fact that this story was told from Kambirinachi, Kehinde and Taiye’s perspectives because the anger, guilt, loneliness, grief, happiness and the trauma they experienced was palpable and my heart really went out to them. By the way, have I mentioned how much I adore this gorgeous book cover?

Cons And Heads Up

This story contains graphic descriptions of fertility issues, miscarriages, rape of a minor, body hate, internalized fatphobia, drug use, death of close family members and suicide.

The Conclusion

Butter Honey Pig Bread has found a permanent place in my heart because it portrays so many themes that I adore. I highly recommend this touching novel for anyone who enjoys stories that contain familial and romantic love, loss, grief, forgiveness, found family, complicated mother-daughter relationships, generational trauma, lots of queer representation and food galore. After devouring this wonderful story, I can’t wait to see what Francesca Ekwuyasi does next!

Excerpt from Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi

Taiye and I thought we would always be together, when we were small and held hands and whispered secret stories about what must be wrong with our mother. After secondary school, we would go to live with our aunty Yemisi in South London. We would do our A levels together and go to university together and have a flat together. She would cook, and I would run all the errands that required speaking to other people, because back then, she only really talked to me and our parents.

But then a bad thing happened when we were still small, and the plan changed. What I mean is that I changed the plan. I peeled myself away from her rather savagely. One of the multitudes of things I regret.

Our relationship has always struggled against our twinness. “Resentment” is too sharp a word—it’s just so unforgiving—but not long after we turned twelve something close to it stained and spread between us, like ink on wet paper. Our mother was plunged deep in one of her episodes—one of the places she sometimes hid when she refused to take her medicine—curled up on the floor or cradled between her bed and the wall, muttering about voices and refusing to be touched.

She was grieving our father’s sudden death. All three of us were stunned into a heavy kind of hushedness. As children, Taiye and I didn’t understand how our mother blamed herself for it, but we felt that our life, as we knew it before the singular fact of his death, was over. We knew that the season had shifted, that the joy that permeated the air around us because our parents were in love—whatever that meant, we knew it was a gift—had faded. The gorgeousness of our mother’s voice when she sang, all of us going swimming at Ikoyi Club, mashing overripe plantains to fry mosa together, the firmness of the ground, the certainty of morning, the assurance that time would wind forward, and mangoes would ripen, all of that was out of our grasp, just as the final wisps of a vivid dream dissipate at the first breath of morning.

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