STARRED Book Review: Seeri

Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

In which a friendship overflows with yearning and love

“Officially a year since Nijah died. She took a deep breath and locked eyes with Kewa. “Okay. Book the taxi.”

Kewa is stalking her ex on their location-sharing app and trying to convince Tajudeen that they should go meet him. Kewa was dating this man when her sister (Nijah) died, a relationship that turned into a year of emotionally and then physically ghosting him as she retreated into her grief. In fact, she did not say a word for months.

But now she’s feeling ready—to apologize for all that time, to tell him she loves him, and to start getting remnants of her life back together. She just needs the support of her closest friend, who would do anything for her, and who can’t say no on the anniversary of Kewa’s sister—and Tajudeen’s best friend—dying. So they call a taxi… and nothing about that night goes according to plan. 

They get picked up by an “anti-bachelorette” party for a “bride-no-longer-to-be” whose groom cheated on her (and whose conversation keeps reminding Kewa and Tajudeen of things Nijah loved,) and then the cab driver messes up all their plans.

When they do finally get to the party where Kewa’s ex is, a woman begins flirting with Tajudeen while Kewa talks to her ex. The whole time, the two friends can’t keep their eyes off each other or stop talking about the other person, or—adorably and endearingly—understand that they’re in love.

I have read (really good!) romance novels that had me swooning fewer times than this short novella. It is romantic on a level we don’t see in films anymore. It’s giving that late 90s-early 2000s romantic movie energy that had us all swooning out loud. If you’re not a regular reader of swoonworthy writing—or someone with an incredible love in their life!—but you’ll know exactly what I mean when you read this book. It’s a quiet, dizzying combination of butterflies and breathlessness and the warm feeling that all is right with the world in this moment.

I must include at least one of my favorite swoony moments for you to understand what I’m talking about: “It had started as faint bells, tolling gently when Tajudeen smiled at her from across the lunch table. Then violins when Tajudeen pushed a forkful of pasta into her mouth while making unflinching eye contact. Then a base that reverberated through her whole body when Tajudeen held her hand.”

Then, what begins as heart-fluttering gorgeousness, continues to the gloriously romantic: “Tajudeen hugged her goodbye, and while her head was buried in the crook of Kewa’s neck she whispered a soft goodbye that made the choir kick in.” 

I’m going to write a sentence no one has written here before, but: I feel like Bigolas Dickolas right now. Do you remember when that person tweeted about This Is How You Lose the Time War and said “just read it.” That’s how Seeri makes me feel. Like Time War, Seeri is a short book that’s filled with emotions that leave you feeling forever changed. I still see people devastated (positively—again, romance readers will get it) just seeing one sentence quoted from Time War. Seeri is filled with lines that evoke that same powerful reaction. No description could truly capture how breathless I felt when I read some of the lines these characters say to each other and about each other. 

Seeri is perfect for readers who want a short but immensely satisfying friends-to-lovers romance; it’s for those who love to read mutual queer yearning and for readers who enjoy a little ‘everyone but these idiots can see they’re in love’ energy.

It’s also genuinely funny; I laughed out loud multiple times, especially when the author reminds us that, though this love feels timeless and eternal, the setting is modern and fresh. (I had to take a moment to laugh for real after reading the relatable girls-night-out experience of “Hi, sorry, a girl in the bathroom hasn’t gotten a text back since Wednesday so I was dealing with that.”) Without giving away too much about the love story, Seeri is also an excellent read (and the ultimate gift!) for anyone who has fallen in love with the person helping them learn their lines for a stage performance. 

The thing about Seeri that I’m most in awe of is the way Chiamaka Okike brings us into a years-long friendship—the mundane, the memories, the moments of eye-contact caught in an instant—and captures all that those years built. We’re a part of it.

I laughed and groaned with the girls during their chaotic taxi ride, I understood the vast chasms of Kewa and Tajudeen’s loss without Nijah in their lives, and I felt my breath catch at each revelation of their yet-to-be-realized romance. I’m sure I’ll read this at different stages of my life and see new sides to the story and new sides of myself in it, like holding up a crystal to the light and seeing where the rainbow reflections scatter across the room.

“…Kewa’s face. Across it she could see the artifacts of Nijah. She and Kewa used to have the same dimple on their chin, but Kewa’s had filled out the older she got. Right then Tajudeen wanted to press her thumb into it, hoping it would leave a dent so that for a moment she would be staring at her best friend’s face again.”

The author writes grief so beautifully and so authentically that you’ll see it for the multifaceted, everchanging, living thing it is. The way Okike writes Tajudeen and Kewa’s relationship feels like you are in the room with the characters, like you could reach out and touch the glowing, emotional connection surrounding them. I can’t imagine going on with life after the loss these characters experienced, and I can’t begin to guess how I’d respond to having someone so close to the person remain in my life. Seeri offers a compassionate, complicated idea of what it’s like for Kewa and Tajudeen to live without Nijah, and to be falling in love with each other along the way.

Though they’re drunk or drinking to get drunk through most of this story, and Kewa admits to overcoming a period of suicidal ideation after losing Nijah, Seeri is not a tale of two grieving people clinging to each other in a rush of pain and tangled, aching emotions that come out looking like lust. Okike shows us the love between Tajudeen and Kewa as something tender, precious, and undeniable. We see it through the eyes of those around them, and we see that it’s been blossoming for so long—each of their blooming petals reaching out toward the sun (the other person), neither of them looking up and away from their best friend for long enough to notice they’re in love. It’s really very sweet, and it’s rooted in realness. 

I loved how explicit and casual Kewa and Tajudeen’s Nigerianness is. I loved that their love exists in this liminal space of a night out, making itself known amongst the random conversations and rush of unexpected emotions. I loved that Seeri is this hopeful, messy, utterly romantic story between two people who lost the most important person in their lives, realized they’re not alone in this, and began to see what everyone else saw in their next most important relationship. 

This will be someone’s comfort read, and it will be the book someone holds onto in the hope of being loved this way. Seeri is a love story that understands how much heartache comes with being human and knows precisely how—despite everything, and sometimes because of everything—love makes our days feel sweeter. Delicately heartwrenching, and blessed with the gift of somehow making the process of giving a eulogy romantic, I’ll be thinking about author Chiamaka Okike’s writing for a long, long time.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of Seeri by Chiamaka Okike! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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