Book 2: I Do Not Come To You By Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

When I saw the title of the book, my first impression was that it had to be about a woman and the epilogue proved that when it started with Augustina.

Augustina's story was one I considered cliched at the start, the story about a girl who was smart growing up in the village whose father didn't want to send her to secondary school, she finally did and ended up at her uncle's house where she meets Engineer who just came back from studying abroad, he falls in love with her and wants to marry her, in retrospect I will say it may be basic, but it was a good enough background story as the book isn't about Augustina or her husband but their son.

It also didn't add up how Engineer ended up as poor as he did when he was part of the few Nigerians who got to study abroad at that time and he was able to get his wife to do her Master's abroad, I think it's a flaw in the plot, I do acknowledge that being well educated does not correlate to wealth but he had too many things going together for him at that time in Nigeria's history that he'll certainly end up with the rich.

Anyways, the story is about his son Kingsley, who is a first-class graduate of chemical engineering, who hasn't found a job, he's supposed to help his parents with the bills, but he's been faced with endless rejection, still in this state, his long time girlfriend leaves him because he's broke.

Shortly after, Engineer has a stroke and his family can't pay his medical bills and the family has to turn to Uncle Boniface Augustina's brother, who they have no relations with anymore because of his involvement in shoddy deals and 419. Engineer will never approve of it, he has high moral standards and will not change them for any reason, but the family is desperate, so Kingsley goes for it.

After numerous attempts to get Engineer well, he ends up dying, Boniface pays for the burial and offers Kingsley a job with him, that's how he ends up doing 419 too, he believes he's making the sacrifice for his family, so his siblings can go to school and suffer as he did but his mom disproves of it and will not accept his money.

In the end, Uncle Boniface is murdered as he tries to get into politics, and Kingsley decides to quit 419, making his mom happy.

The plot was just too straight, with no twist to the story, and no suspense and ends too well, Kingsley had it easy, winterbottom, one of the people he defrauded invested in his new business.

I found it both funny and unimpressive that the title came from one of the emails he sent as a fraudster. That aside, the book generally had a feel-good vibe, you can read it easily to pass time.

I give it a 3-star rating.