Review: The List by Yomi Adegoke

Title: The List

Author: Yomi Adegoke

Year published: 2023

Category: Adult fiction

Pages: 336 pages

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Location: (my 2023 Google Reading map): UK

Summary: Ola Olajide, a celebrated journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is set to marry the love of her life in one month’s time. Young, beautiful, and successful—she and her fiancé Michael are considered the “couple goals” of their social network and seem to have it all. That is, until one morning when they both wake up to the same message: “Oh my god, have you seen The List?” 

It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list—she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael’s name is on it.

Review: Given the fact that I've read one book in the last month due to my new job and a trip to visit my daughter, I really needed a novel that was going to be engrossing and a quick read. I got the latter, but the former fell a bit short.

The concept of this book is a really good one. I can just imagine a list of abusers and harassers being published, going viral, and everyone getting sucked into who really did what and how it's affecting everyone around them. The problem is that, even though I wanted Michael to be on the list for the wrong reasons (and I can't ruin the story and reveal if he is or not), he kept being a lying jerk so I didn't feel for him.

And Ola should have been a sympathetic character. Her fiancé (wedding in only 2 weeks) is on this list, she works at a feminist magazine as a journalist, the scene is set. But, I just didn't feel for her. Maybe that was the point. No one is innocent in things like this, there is no black and white when it comes to most things in life.

There was a little twist at the end that I didn't see coming, but it wasn't enough to save the plot. So, all in all I feel meh about this novel.

Challenges for which this counts: 

• Bookish--journalism, magazine