More about the book...

The novel is essentially about how the interplay of our choices and fate determine how our lives turn out. Through Ayodele’s life, it explores how much of her character (her soul in a way) changes depending on what life metes out to her, and how much of her stays the same, regardless of how she has chosen.

It starts on Ayodele’s eighteenth birthday, representing the cusp between her and womanhood, when she tries to make a key decision – who she should choose to sleep with for the first time? She seems coolheaded as she mentally prepares a list of options – the rest of the book, spanning three of her possible lives from 18 to roughly 65 start with the aftermath of each choice.

Ayodele’s relationship with her mother is often prickly, and develops slightly differently in each life, from antagonism as a teenager through to caring as her mother becomes ill. Ayodele’s friendships also vary through the lives, with some characters becoming more important in one life than another – just as we would expect in our own. Different aspects of her personality come to the fore in each life – vulnerability in one, loss and altruism in another, rejection and calculation in a third. Some key events – such as the death of her mother - happen in all lives, but each look at the event swivels the viewpoint slightly, to reflect the altered pathways to that moment from the young Ayodele we meet at the beginning.

All the lives contain some degree of tragedy as well as some hope, and they touch on different aspects of modern African society – sexuality, family, religion, polygamy, cruel governments – but all of these are anchored to the viewpoint of one particular girl, growing up, learning about herself, and making choices.