r/NigerianBooks

Everything Is Not Enough follows three main female characters, Yasmiin, Brittany, and Kemi, all Black women living in Stockholm but coming from very different backgrounds and living very different lives, different tax brackets even.

I randomly picked up this book from my shelf right before my trip to the Scandinavian countries, Sweden included, so it felt like such a lucky coincidence to read about places I would later walk through and experience myself. At the time, I also didn’t realize this book was actually a sequel to In Every Mirror She’s Black… which has been sitting unread on my shelf all this time 🥲.

Back to the review. The three women, Kemi (Nigerian), Yasmiin (Somalian), and Brittany (African American), all navigate life differently in Stockholm.

Kemi’s story irritated me so much because she came across as someone deeply unhappy with her life but unwilling to leave the spaces making her unhappy. Her relationship, her job, even aspects of her family life all felt unsatisfactory, yet she stayed. Through her story, I also learned the Swedish term “sambo,” which basically refers to a long-term partner you live with without being married, and that was clearly the direction her relationship with Tobias was heading.

Brittany’s storyline was… hmm. Complicated. She begins to realize her marriage to Johnny may not have been built on genuine love after discovering she looks strikingly similar to Maya, Johnny’s first and only love, and to make matters worse, their daughter was named after her too, something Brittany didn’t even know initially. Imagine finding that out 😭. She spends much of the book trying to escape not just Johnny, but the grip of his powerful Stockholm family as well.

Side note: Kemi also happened to work for Johnny, which added another layer to everything.

Yasmiin’s story was honestly the most painful for me. Escaping Somalia only to end up in Italy working as a sex worker before eventually making her way to Sweden to seek asylum… sigh. Her storyline starts intertwining with Muna’s, and Muna especially is a character I wanted more from. She opens the book with a suicide attempt, and I still don’t feel like I fully understand her journey. I also would have loved to know more about Yasmiin’s life back in Somalia and why her relationship with her mother was strained.

Overall, it was an okay read for me. I struggled a bit getting through it, and honestly, it slightly discouraged me from rushing to read the first book in the series. But one thing I really appreciated was how much it reminded me of my time in Stockholm. Places like Gamla stan popping up in the story made the reading experience more immersive for me, and I also relearned just how big of a deal Midsummer is in Swedish culture.

Why We're Running This Survey

Every great platform starts with a simple question — what do people actually want? Before we build something and assume we know the answer, we want to ask the people who matter most directly. That's exactly why this survey exists.

We are in the early stages of launching a digital reading platform focused on original illustrated comics, poetry, and short stories. Everything on the platform is independently produced — written, illustrated, and edited outside of the traditional publishing system. No big publishing houses. No corporate gatekeeping. Just original voices telling original stories with original artwork.

But before we finalise how the platform works, how it's priced, and how content gets released, we want real opinions from real readers. Not assumptions. Not guesswork. Not what we think people want — what people actually tell us they want.

The traditional publishing industry rejects over 95% of manuscripts it receives — including genuinely brilliant work — simply because it doesn't fit a commercial formula. We believe that system leaves too many great stories unread and too many great writers unheard. Our platform exists to change that. But changing it properly means understanding the people we're changing it for.

This survey helps us answer questions we genuinely don't know the answer to yet. Should content be free to sample before paying? Should readers pay per book or subscribe for full access? Does the illustrated format actually matter to people or is the writing all that counts? What makes someone trust a brand new platform enough to spend money on it?

Your answers directly shape decisions that are still being made. This is not a formality. We are not collecting data to confirm what we already decided. We are asking because we genuinely do not know yet and your opinion is the most valuable research tool we have.

By the way were a nigerian book site

Two minutes of your time could shape something that lasts much longer than that.

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