Out November 26th by @highbridgeaudio (offered to me via @netgalley) this was gorgeously narrated by Délé Ogundiran who perfectly switched accents from Nigerian to American to others. It was a seamless listening experience that added to my enjoyment of this story.

The story is of a trio of characters in 1970's Rabata Nigeria, where a particular American reverend is trying to build a church, a mission clinic is teetering with an aged doctor, and an unexpected pregnancy has few options. There is growing tension between the western philosophies and local traditions, levels of respect and derision becoming more visible.

This was a deeply moving story told from the Nigerian perspective, which most of the missionary stories I have heard are not. I do believe this novel shows how motives can be twisted and use religion for personal gains. This is not new, nor has it stopped, but this gave one specific look at the harms such western missions have done. It was heartbreaking to me as I do hold dear my faith and hate to see it used for power and domination instead of love and self-sacrifice.

Even though the story was difficult at times to hear, it was elegantly told. I won't forget Jummai, Tebeya, or Zanya.

I highly recommend this in audio, as Ogundiran truly brought this story to vivid life. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book was very detailed and I enjoyed the richly developed characters that all intertwined together. There are multiple layer to this book and the audiobook was very well narrated. Highly recommend this book!

this book was ok. i think it's not best on audio, but on the page. there were so many characters to keep track of but it felt like none of their stories had space to be fleshed out. I did like the narrator though.

Before the Mango Ripens is a novel about a Nigerian community in the 1970s and the last impacts of colonialism and Western religious beliefs. It was a slower read that really made me think and ponder. I didn't always love reading it (because it was slower) but it is a book that has themes that I keep thinking about.

I loved the audio narration to hear the accents and pronunciations, but this was a book I needed to read on the page to truly understand.

I really enjoyed this book. The historical fiction content, as well as the injustices that the missionaries brought to Nigeria and the African communities was well portrayed in this book.
The author does an excellent job of taking three very different characters, one who is working as a housemaid to the missionaries and not living a life of privilege, one woman of privilege who is a physician and her clinic is currently funded partly by missionary money, and a man who wants to lead the church, but is challenged by the missionaries because they do not think he is educated due to his environmental upbringing, and merging them to a common goal by the end of the book.
Wonderful read!

The books touches a lot on religion but not because it’s a religious book but bc it’s part of the background. The characters are quite complex, which kept me entertained throughout the story. The narrator does a great job being ing the story to light and the way they change their perspective/voice/expression for different characters which kinda tells you what kind of person they are really made me feel like this was a movie or that I was there in a sence. Not a spoiler or anything, most of the characters there are woman, which made me feel like this was a book about women’s lives and struggles because it does focus a lot on on things like this. I loved everything about it. I would read it again, I feel like if I did I would most likely find diffrent meaning to things they said, or did, that’s how much dept was put into this book. Thank you to the author for letting me share this experience.

The story flowed well and the characters were well developed. I recommend this book and look forward to more from this author.


****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****