The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: Necessary Fiction
Author: Eloghosa Osunde
Published: July 2025
Genre: Literary
Themes: Love, Found Family, Friendship

One sentence summary: A beautiful group of stories and characters that shows us what it means to be queer in Nigeria today.

One sentence review: One of the most beautiful and quotable books I’ve read this year.

Review:

Necessary Fiction asks what it means to queer in a modern Nigeria. It asks of love in all it’s forms, finds family where there is none and looks for hope in the dark.

This book is absolutely stunning. It’s flowing and so beautifully delivered. It’s heavy with emotion. It’s going to make you stop and think and feel all the feelings. 

Listening on audio was another experience entirely. Absolutely recommend listening to this. 

The cast of characters is vast and at first intimidating but entirely necessary. This is a beautifully woven tapestry of queer lives. 

I enjoyed Vagabonds but this is another level. It’s also entirely different, so even if Vagabonds wasn’t for you, you need to pick this up. I promise you won’t regret it. 

I could fill this review with quotes but I’ll cut it down to the below: 

“We both deserve the lives that we can survive”

“Listen to me, listen, my love,” Aunty G cut in, “this thing your brain is doing to you is torture; it’s punishment. So I’m going to stand between you and it and say: There are mercies only you can show yourself. We do this by taking our experiences seriously; we do this by becoming reliable witnesses of our lives; we do this by abandoning should.”

“If you have friends, you have love. If you have yourself, you have love. If you have me, you have love. Look at me, you have love. Leave the past, you have love. Hold the future because you have love.”

“Life had almost tricked them into thinking other things, but the truth was: they were still young, still loved, still hurt in hidden places but not alone, not alone, especially in the dark.”

Are you planning to pick this one up?

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 20/11/2025