Review: "Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow" by Damilare Kuku

Only Big Bumbum Matters Tomorrow by Damilare Kuku
Published July 2024 via HarperVia
★★★★

Temi is young and smart and determined: she will live with a flat bumbum no more. Now that she's saved up some naira, it's time to fix that bumbum and find herself a man. When she tells her family, she sets off an uproar—and we gradually see how the experience of each woman in her family, her sister and mother and aunts, has influenced the way they think about bodies and bodily autonomy and relationships and independence.

How do you inform your family members that you intend to surgically enlarge your buttocks without receiving a barrage of curses? How do you slip it into a conversation with Màámi that you intend to relocate to Lagos to meet the man who will love you senseless? How do you tell your older sister, who, until a week ago, you hadn't seen in five years, that you are hoping to stay in her Lagos apartment while you recover from surgery, maybe even stay a few more months? How? (loc. 100*)

The title is killer. It's worth noting that the content is far more serious than the cover necessarily conveys—abuse and sexism and grief float through the pages, permeating every character's story. There's a lot of sex and a fair amount of violence and a lot of choices that someone even half a step removed from the story would advise against. Many characters get their say, from Temi and her sister Ládùn to the lawyer who really shouldn't be allowed to have opinions about women.

What sells me on the book is that it's not really about Temi and her body image—or it is, but it's only about that within the context of much wider societal forces. She's been told again and again and again that her body isn't up to snuff, isn't desirable, and she's internalized that to the extent that she can't imagine any kind of success if she doesn't change her body first. At the same time, though, the women around her have all been judged for their bodies, and found wanting or acceptable, and because their experiences are different from Temi's the conversations keep glancing off each other. I love seeing a book that discusses body image (and the societal influences) within a non-Western context in which the ideal is not, well, Temi's shape.

3.5 stars; I'd like to see what stories—and what titles—Kuku comes up with next.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.