Every Body Looking by Candice Iloh opens with Ada driving herself and her mom to her high school graduation. What should be an exciting time (full stop) is actually an awkward time for the Nigerian American teen.

A child of divorce, Ada hasn’t seen her mother, who battles addiction, in several years. Of course, addiction is the basis of a bittersweet and toxic relationship between the mother and daughter. Ada describes her mother as “more thorns than petals.”

On the flip side, Ada’s father, who has sacrificed to provide a good life for his daughter, is super religious and is the type who must pray before doing anything. Before partaking in a meal, before driving, he must recite a prayer. This reminds me of the unfortunate time I briefly dated a guy who acted in the same manner.

Never mind that I’m two steps away from being an atheist (I’m agnostic), one time after leaving the movies, he wouldn’t pull out of the parking spot until I said “amen.” Him being a Black Hebrew meant that I understood nary a word of the prayer he had just declaimed. No matter to him. He eyeballed me until I said it. I remained silent when he played Hebrew Rosetta Stone lessons as we drove from the city back to Brooklyn.

In Ibo, “Ada” means oldest daughter or first girl. During her first year attending an HBCU, Ada struggles with her sexuality, social awkwardness, and her studies. It’s her first time being away from her family, which is by design. While I was sure about my sexuality and was hoping to meet the love of my life/future husband on campus (I did not), my social awkwardness and classes had me in a chokehold. I went from being a heralded National Honor Society inducted student to academic probation and having my college counselor suggest I get tested for a learning disability.

Ada’s focus and energies are thrown into her extracurricular dance class rather than the “more important” ones, like accounting, for which she has only one of the three required books. Dance allows her to feel free and in control, especially of her body. I attended a top-rated business school on a full scholarship, but during the summer I worked multiple jobs to afford books and other on-campus expenses. My balance sheet never balanced. My comfort zone and only As were in my liberal arts courses. It was my first of three colleges, none of which provided the college experience I had daydreamed of having.

The Every Body Looking audiobook clocks in at barely 3 hours. I could have finished it in one session, but I was distracted and was lost until I realized the story flashes back between current college days and past elementary school years when we learn the specifics of the dysfunction between Ada and her mother. We see Ada’s struggle for some semblance of normalcy. Similar to Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne and Hannah & Angel by Ishle Park, it’s a YA novel-in-verse.

Being first-generation American carrying the expectations of Nigerian immigrant parents is something else that burdens Ada. Readers may find some aspects of the novel traumatizing or triggering. Not all stories get wrapped up in a tiny bow. Her difficult life bars the novel from being called a feel-good story, but Ada does begin to “find herself.”

Originally drafted June 1, 2021

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