Rating: 
Summary: Very illuminating
Review: An easy to read story that provides a realistic and convincing background on both the high value Africans place on children as well as the high costs of motherhood on women. Very illuminating
Rating:
Summary: Very illuminating
Review: An easy to read story that provides a realistic and convincing background on both the high value Africans place on children as well as the high costs of motherhood on women. Very illuminating
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic......Read the last chapter with eyes full of tears
Review: An indept exposure to the challenges faced by an uneducated african woman determined to survive in colonial Nigeria. A story of a woman who went through the trials of life, first as the apple of her fathers eyes and the most sort after bride. Only to be barren and looses her husband to another woman. To hide her shame, she is married off to a man she has never met in the colonial city of Lagos (Nigeria). Read this book and see how she faces the challenges of living in a strange land and trying to abide by two different cultures. The one she was brought up in, groomed as a true African woman and the one she is forced to live in as an adultrated african, spieced with the inferior ingredients of the colonial masters.. You just might be forced to compare her with your mother. Read this book and understand the true meaning of the word MOTHER.
Rating:
Summary: In this well told story, the "Joys of Motherhood" are few
Review: Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian sociologist and herself a mother, writes the story of an Ibuzu woman in the years surrounding WWII. In its mix of humor and pathos, deft characterizations and evocation of Nigeria ways, the Joys of Motherhood is a seemingly simple story of a woman trapped by cultural mores and expectations, chief among them that she should find fulfillment in the joys of motherhood. Actually, the story is masterful as Emecheta succeeds in the difficult task of opening a window for the Western reader without condescension, lecturing, preaching or boring her reader. Although with great differences, the book reminded me greatly of Frank McCourt's autobiographical Angela's Ashes, and gave me much the same satisfaction.
Rating: 
Summary: The Joys of Motherhood is unacceptably contrived & intruded.
Review: Emecheta has more right to present the plight of African women than many other authors. She is honestly concerned with the plight of women, and indeed all people, in her homeland of Nigeria. Unfortunatley, however, she abandons all objectivity to beat a reader over the head with her justified but forced and depressing message.The style of he novel is excessivley contrived. This does not allow the reader to become absorbed in fiction, but continually confront a global issue. Emecheta casts structural and descriptive niceties aside on her thematic crusade. The result is that the novel reads like a textbook, with the characters meerly being an example bought in to prove a point. Nnu Ego is inadvertantly compared to her true rebel of a mother. This comparison alone exposes how flat character development has been. Although The Joys of Motherhood is a genuine and culturally sensitive eye opener, it is a painfull read due its persistant intrusions and its forced and undeveloped structure and characters.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing look into another culture!
Review: I had to read this book for my World Lit. class in college. I must say it is one of the best books I have ever read. Easy to follow from begining to end, I did not want to put it down. I recommend this to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: The real plot...
Review: I have to argue with VICTRAV's telling of the book... Nnu Ego was sent to marry a man she did not know yet - but this was after a failed marriage to a man she did know. Also, Nnu Ego knew her future husbands brother and family - just not him. Yes, Nnu Ego had some struggle in regards to having children but having children is what made her happy and further made her a woman. Her husband, Nnaife, did take another wife, his deceased brothers wife as Ibo custom deemed proper. Adaku - the second wife taken ultimately leaves Nnaife because she doesn't like him. Okpo, the third wife came into their lives when Nnu Ego was reaching her 40's - and instead of offering irrritance like Adaku, offered help to Nnu Ego. Wanting to leave Nnaife and Lagos are thoughts that cross Nnu Ego's mind throughout the entire book but its not until the encarciration of Nnaife that Nnu Ego returns to her home in Ibuza. Having no husband and all her children gone their own ways Nnu Ego's life seems a sad one but in the end, after she passes, her children pay omage to her with "the greatest funeral Ibuza had ever seen." (Emecheta p.224) A definately important thing to remember when reading this book is not to read it from your culture's eyes but to try and understand another cultures ways.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Thought-Provoking Fiction
Review: Joys of Motherhood was one of the books I read for my Post Colonial African lit class, and I have to say it was my favourite novel on the course. I could barely put this book down. Emecheta rights in an engaging style that gets the reader wrapped up in the lives of the characters. I found myself cheering on Adaku, hating Oshia and wanting Nnu Ego to break free from the patriarchal system. This is not the kind of book you read to see how it ends since you know from the beginning it will end in sadness. You read this book only to know the characters and their plight. It even gives you a look at how _men_ are victims of the patriarchal system as well. I fully recommend Joys of Motherhood to anyone who enjoys fully engaging characters.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Thought-Provoking Fiction
Review: Joys of Motherhood was one of the books I read for my Post Colonial African lit class, and I have to say it was my favourite novel on the course. I could barely put this book down. Emecheta rights in an engaging style that gets the reader wrapped up in the lives of the characters. I found myself cheering on Adaku, hating Oshia and wanting Nnu Ego to break free from the patriarchal system. This is not the kind of book you read to see how it ends since you know from the beginning it will end in sadness. You read this book only to know the characters and their plight. It even gives you a look at how _men_ are victims of the patriarchal system as well. I fully recommend Joys of Motherhood to anyone who enjoys fully engaging characters.
Rating: 
Summary: A look at women in Africa
Review: The bride price is paid and a young Nigerian girl is sent off to Lagos to a man she has never met. She struggles through the years to bear his children. She feeds and clothes them, something her husband seems unwilling or unable to do so. He marries other women, yet is unwilling to give his first wife the honor she is due. In the end, he rejects her for his youngest wife, and she must return in shame to her family. This book is well worth reading to explore the conflicts of traditional life and colonial life in Nigeria, as well as many other African countries.
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