Ola Olajide, a high-profile journalist, is marrying the love of her life in one month’s time. She and her fiance Michael 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 list of anonymous allegations about abusive men. Now it’s been published online. Ola made her name breaking exactly this type of story. But today, Michael’s name is on there.

Will the truth behind The list change everything for them?

Yomi Adegoke's Book The list

As Adegoke’s debut novel, ‘The List’ immediately captures the attention of book lovers everywhere. The concept and the plot of the book sound like every good thriller-lover’s dream – however there is a lot more to this book than your average thriller and I personally wouldn’t even fit it into that category, I see it more as a contemporary novel. 

The book explores feminism, morality, love, self-worth and modern-day social media culture. You are immediately given both the perspectives of Ola and her fiance Michael and therefore from early on you have an understanding of the reasons for the list etc. In some ways this makes the book really interesting and adds that element of mystery as to where this fits into their story but in other aspects it slows the pace of the book down. The outcome seems pretty obvious given the insider knowledge early on and this made me feel like I was just waiting for a huge plot twist that never really seemed to come until the final page and that was semi-disappointing.

Michael, as a whole for me, was an extremely frustrating character. There was this feeling that I should semi sympathise with him but there was not a bone in my body that felt that for him. Similarly, Ola for me became equally as frustrating but also was the middle ground of how does someone act in this situation? I understood the message of men can be falsely portrayed as doing awful things but also is that the message? I don’t quite understand. I felt like after everything this just showed that women are incredibly forgiving and also blinded by love and that upsets me.

The first half of this book really was a compelling read and I found myself excited to read more, wanting to know what would happen as the date of the wedding loomed closer. The over-the-top Nigerian wedding was also an interesting cultural perspective and at the heart of the story was this what will family/friends think debate that really did allow me to think about what I was reading.

Overall, there was lots of interesting material and the premise of the book has the potential to be incredible, but for me I just couldn’t grow an attachment to the characters or the story.