Hope and Glory, Jendella Benson
Hope and Glory, Jendella Benson
List: $28.99 | Sale: $20.29
Club: $14.49

Hope and Glory
A Novel

Author: Jendella Benson

Narrator: Kelechi Okafor

Unabridged: 11 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: William Morrow

Published: 04/19/2022


Synopsis

One of the year’s most anticipated by Marie Claire, Essence, Debutiful, & GoodreadsA brilliant debut by a British-Nigerian author—a heartfelt family drama that will delight book club readers and fans of books like The Girl with the Louding Voice and Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows.“Jendella Benson has drawn such a compelling world. The book and the characters stayed with me long after I'd turned the final pages!” —Candice Carty-Williams, bestselling author of QueenieGlory Akindele returns to London from her seemingly glamorous life in LA to mourn the sudden death of her father, only to find her previously close family has fallen apart in her absence. Her brother, Victor, is in jail and won’t speak to her because she didn’t come home for his trial. Her older sister, Faith, once a busy career woman, appears to have lost her independence and ambition, and is instead channeling her energies into holding together a perfect suburban family. Worst of all, their mother, Celeste, is headed toward a breakdown after the death of her husband and the shame of her son’s incarceration.Rather than returning to America, Glory decides to stay and try to bring them all together again. It’s a tall order given that Glory’s life isn’t exactly working out according to plan either, and she’s acutely aware that she’s not so sure who she is and what she wants.A chance reunion with a man she’d known in her teens—the perceptive but elusive Julian—gives her the courage to start questioning why her respectable but obsessively private Nigerian immigrant family is the way it is. But then Glory’s questioning unearths a massive secret that shatters the family’s fragile peace—and she risks losing everyone she deeply cares about in her pursuit of the truth and a reunited family."Filled with unexpected, but earned, twists, Hope and Glory balances moments of rich humor and devastating profundity...deeply authentic." —Kirkus Reviews"A sumptuous and satisfying meditation on family and the meaning of home.” —Publishers Weekly

About Jendella Benson

Jendella Benson is a TedX speaker and popular writer and editor for Black Ballad. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, and on BuzzFeed, MTV News UK, and The Huffington Post, among many others. She lives in London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kezia on July 21, 2022

Wow! Not Benson showing us how family drama is done! Non-communication in the family is super detrimental and we see this play out in Glory’s family. I was genuinely interested in what was going on. This family is first presented as a family with bad luck, and then it sort of becomes a mystery since......more

Goodreads review by Kimberly on April 20, 2022

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise is very interesting; young Nigerian-English woman returns home from abroad after her father dies and discovers a big family secret. However, the execution left me wanting more. The plot moved very slowly until then end, which felt rushed. I als......more

Goodreads review by Emily on August 28, 2023

An engrossing family drama that discusses family dynamics, discovering truths, and coming together after falling apart. Following protagonist Glory in the wake of her father’s death and move back to London from LA, we see the complications of navigating new relationships and rekindling ones that hav......more

Goodreads review by Monica on May 27, 2022

The story was good! 3.5 The main character Glory got on my nerves often. Nonetheless the book was an okay read more good than bad......more

Goodreads review by Britney on March 02, 2022

Thank you NetGalley for the advanced readers copy! I did find this one a little slow to get into and it didn't really pick up for me until about 30% of the way in. I didn't really connect with any of the characters at first but they all grew on me in time. Hope & Glory centers around a Nigerian famil......more