Lol! When did an intro to a post become so difficult though?! I've been staring at my screen for about 30 minutes thinking of how to start. Anyway, how's everyone doing? The weather here has been so hot these past couple of days and I'm wondering where the harmattan is. I had to loosen my hair so I can pour water on it everyday, that's how hot it is.

• '29, Single and Nigerian' by Naijasinglegirl

Photo source- www.naijasinglegirl.com

I've read so many reviews about this book and I'm very eager to read it. You can order one for yourself and another for me here. Gracias! Hehehe!!

• Cassie Daves 2017 Blog Planner

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• Leather Backpack

• DSLR Camera

• Reflector Sunglasses

Is it just me or can anyone else smell Christmas in the air? LOL! I'm quite excited. Hey guys! How's it going? Hope you had a fantastic weekend just like myself. I had the opportunity to work with the crew of Ndani Lifestyle Blog to cover the GTBank Fashion Weekend which took place at the Landmark Event Centre, Oniru, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Day 1- I managed to get a quick picture before the close of day. That's my tired face.

Day 2- I was at the craft village taking some notes for a post.

Photo source- ndanilifestyle.com

Photo source- ndanilifestyle.com

CEO Zaron Cosmetics. (Photo source; ndanilifestyle.com)

Bijou Abiola (Photo source; ndanilifestyle.com)

Photo source- ndanilifestyle.com

Photo source- ndanilifestyle.com

Photo source- ndanilifestyle.com

Hiii guys! *waving frantically* How are we doing? This is my first post this month so permit me to wish you a happy November. Hope your weekend turned out great? I had an amazing time because I got to attend a wedding and it was so much fun.  Now, let's dig into the book review.


'The Perks of Being a Wallflower'. There's just something I like so much about the book title. So, who's a wallflower? Wallflower: a person who is shy or unpopular and who stands or sits apart from other people at a dance or party. This is a very suiting description of 15 year old Charlie who's a high school student and the main character in the book. 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' was published in February 1999 and is set in the early 90s (1991/1992).

Charlie is very quiet, an introvert and also very intelligent (which he's not aware of). The book is a sum of all the letters he wrote to a stranger, telling him/her about his life. Charlie happened to have one good friend, Michael, but then he committed suicide just before they got into high school. This incident traumatizes Charlie because this is the second closest person he's lost in his life, the first being his aunt Helen.

He also has 2 siblings who are always at loggerheads with each other.  He has no friends but suddenly becomes friends with 2 seniors, Sam and Patrick. They are step siblings and they quickly become fond of Charlie. Charlie's English teacher, Bill, is also quite fond of him because he noticed he was very good at writing essays and interpreting literary works. This made him give Charlie books that were outside the school's curriculum and he enjoyed reading and writing about them.

Patrick is in a secret relationship with the captain of the school's football team, Brad, while Charlie has a major crush on Sam. Charlie informs Sam about his feelings towards her and she made him understand that they couldn't possibly become a couple. Although, Sam gave Charlie his first kiss and when asked why, she said she wanted it to be from someone who loved him. This stemmed from the fact that she was sexually abused by her father's friend when she was much younger and she didn't want Charlie to experience his first kiss in that sort of horrible way.

Hanging out with Sam and Patrick also meant attending parties with them and mixing up with their other friends. It was at one of such parties that Charlie was termed a 'wallflower'. Because he sees things and knows things but doesn't say anything.

This book has a lot of themes which includes rape, domestic violence, drug and sexual abuse, first time sexual encounters, music, homosexuality, depression, suicide and loneliness.

For me, I felt the sexual content was the most predominant theme and it was the one thing I didn't like so much about the book. Asides that, it was an interesting read. It reminded me a lot of my teenage years and the search for one's identity and true self. Although, because of cultural differences between the author and myself the reader, I couldn't relate with the aspect of a teenager committing suicide because his parents were having issues at home. What sort of issues though? The author fails to mention except that his parents had a divorce after his death.

 Another thing I didn't quite understand was Charlie's level of naivety. I get that he's very shy and all but at 15, he was oblivious to a whole lot of things which made him sound like an 8 year old most of the time. Still, he was able to read books like "How to Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee and write an excellent essay about it. At some point I began to assume Charlie was probably an autistic child but then, the author mentions nothing about it except that he had a psychologist whom he visited occasionally.

The writing style was one thing that made this book stand out for me. It was pure, relatable and honest. It's one of those books that while reading, you feel this sort of bond with the narrator who in this case was Charlie. My favorite quote in the book is from the epilogue and it reads;

"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them." - Charlie.

Out of 5 stars, I would rate this book 4 stars and recommend everyone to read it. There's a movie adaptation of it and I'm going to get it soon so I can actually watch the characters come to life.



So, the book for this month is 'I've Got Your Number' by Sophie Kinsella. If you've read 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' then you should know Sophie. She's one of my favorite authors.

If you've read 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', please share your thoughts with me in the comments section below. Your feedback is always appreciated.

I'll be back soon. Have a super productive week ahead.
xo, Evita.

"Tick says the clock, tick, tick! What you have to do, do quick!" This is what's currently resounding in my head as I type this post because I was supposed to do this like a week ago. Oh well, I'm here now. Forgive me though. How have you been? Let's face it, the year is gone already. I'm no longer surprised at how fast October zoomed off...time is on a jet plane after all.

In my last post here I mentioned something about my outfit causing a quarrel at home. So I'm here to tell you what really happened and to also know your take on the issue.  



If you've been following my blog for a while, you'll know that I just recently started my fashion/style segment. For my shoots, I usually meet up with my friend who takes me pictures at a location that's approximately 20 minutes away from home. Now, on this day, I wore a pair of dungarees and was ready to set out. My mum was home at the time and as usual, she had something to say about my outfit. In her words, "Is this thing not too short?" My response, "No, it's not". And a "hmmmm" followed. I knew trouble was lurking around closely but I chose to ignore because I knew what I had on was decent enough.



When I got back home, the showdown began. My mum was furious that I actually went out wearing what I wore and that I should be weary about what 'people' would say. Then my dad chipped in and said that there was nothing absolutely wrong with my outfit and it was quite a debate that evening that left me in tears.

Now, I'm not one to show skin(cleavage, a little bit of boobs/side boobs) and to me, that's decent enough. I have nothing against shorts as I have quite a few of them coz I feel there's no harm in showing a bit of my legs. It took me years to build my self confidence as regards my legs and now, I'm at this level where I'm very comfortable showing them off.

What really is the benchmark for decency? Does it mean that I'm an irresponsible person for showing a bit of legs or is this just a major stereotype among quite a huge number of African parents playing out here?  Or is this one of those things you have to endure while staying with your parents in your mid twenties? Because, really, I felt like a teenager who was being scolded for having bad grades in school on that particular day.

I have my reservations but let me save them for another day. Please let me know what you think in the comments section. I'm looking forward to your opinions on this.

See you in November.
xo, Evita.

Hey lovelies! How's your weekend going? I got to watch one EPL game today and it was fun. I used to be a huge football fan but I lost interest somewhere along the line. I still enjoy the game but I'm not so keen on knowing what's really going on with my club (Manchester United) and the rest. Oh well...

I've always loved dungarees because of the ease of styling and the comfort it gives. So I immediately jumped at this corduroy pair when I saw it mainly because of the front pockets!







I initially wanted to wear a white off shoulder top in it but decided to go for a graphic tee instead. Dungarees can be paired with almost anything...depends on your preference. I chose to go with my black sneakers with a touch of gold to compliment the buttons and zip on my dungarees. I could have probably used red sneakers for a pop of colour but I wanted a more monochromatic look.

So tell me, how would you style a pair of dungarees? Do you like how I styled mine? I always look forward to your feedback.

PS; The length of my dungarees caused a major quarrel at home and I'll talk about that in my next post.

I'll be back soon. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
xo, Evita.

Hey guys! How's your week going and how was your weekend? Did you get to hangout with friends, attend a wedding or spend time with family? Speaking of weddings, I haven't attended any this year. Weird? I'm not much of a wedding person except it's that of a family member or a really close friend. Well, I have one coming up next month and I'm super excited because I'm one of the bridesmaids. I'm not weird after all.lol.

My dad loves to experiment in the kitchen. He comes up with sometimes, awkward food combinations and when he's in the zone, we just leave the kitchen for him to work his magic. One Sunday, on his way back from an evening stroll he brought home cocoyams.



 Myself and my mum gave each other this "he has come again" type of look and giggled. Normally, we eat yam, potatoes and plantain but cocoyam? Unless it's supposed to be used as a thickener for soup, then it wasn't needed. So, my dad told me to peel some of it and boil just like you'd boil yam and I did. Then he said we were going to eat it with palm oil and I said, 'huh? cocoyam and palm oil? when it's not yam.' And he responded, 'try it first'. I indeed tried it and it tasted really nice. It had this unique taste that you'd never notice when it's used as a thickener.

Now, my mind had already been tuned to the fact that cocoyams are nowhere on the same level as yams because my immediate environment made me feel so.The next time you visit an open air market, check out where cocoyams are placed and compare with that of yams. It'll become clear to you that indeed, there's some discrimination going on. Even in some African cultures, cocoyams are looked down upon because they are seen as inferior crops and were mostly planted by women. While yams are the big boys because they require more work to cultivate and harvest. If you've read "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe then you would understand better.

Unknowingly to some of us, cocoyam is more nutritious than yam as it's packed with more nutrients, fiber and vitamins. It's also good for weight loss as opposed to yam. In fact, it's a healthier and cheaper alternative to yam. So, this got me thinking, do we take more pride in eating certain foods because of how they've been presented to us over time?
Have you had a similar experience like mine with some other food?
And what crop do you also think is being discriminated against?

It's always a pleasure reading your feedback. Please do well to leave me your comments.

I'll be back soon.
xo, Evita.

Hi guys!! How's your week going and hope you're in good health? This post was supposed to go up last week but I don't even know what happened. Anyhow, I'm here now so let's go right into it.

Last month, I started my bookclub and our first read was 'The Icarus Girl' by Helen Oyeyemi which was published in 2006. I chose this book because I stumbled across some reviews of Helen's work and I was quite impressed. 'The Icarus Girl' happens to be her first book and she was 19 years old at the time it was published.



This book is about an 8 year old girl named Jessamy (Jess), born to an English father and a Nigerian mother. She struggles with issues of isolation, race and a very wild imagination which makes her somber, withdrawn and often results in tantrums.

For the first time, Jessamy visits Nigeria with her parents to see her mother's relatives which turned out to be a life changing experience for her. Here, she meets a girl her age named Titiola, whom she nicknamed TillyTilly. They become fast friends and TillyTilly embraces Jess which made her feel less weird and very comfortable with her. It happens that TillyTilly is either a ghost or an imaginary friend of Jess who has come to life because she's only seen and heard by Jess alone.

On returning to England, TillyTilly appears at Jess's doorstep on the day she resumed school and their friendship was continued. Now, who is TillyTilly exactly? Based on her supernatural abilities like being able to open locked doors without keys and sitting in the midst of people without being seen, I concluded that she's indeed a ghost and not just a mere fragment of Jess's imagination. Later on, it was shown that Jess was a twin who had lost her twin sister during birth. This sheds more light on the appearances and being of TillyTilly whom I dubbed to be Jess's dead twin, given the fact that in her mother's native Yoruba culture, twins have a certain powerful bond.

The first 6 chapters of this book held me spellbound but along the line, it all became flat right up to the end. TillyTilly's struggle to wreck havoc in Jess's life became quite boring as she kept tormenting Jess to a rather rushed and abrupt end.

I was expecting to see more of a comparison of both English and Nigerian cultures between Jess's parents as they dealt with her emotional and psychological problems but this was poorly represented throughout the book. The author tried to capture the mythology of twins in Yoruba culture but it got mixed up till the very end.

A member of my bookclub said she found the book entirely boring and would never again pick it up.lol. I would say the same except that the story started really well but lost its whole essence somewhere in the middle. Would I read it again? I think not. But I wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it except that you might find the end a bit disappointing.

Although, I must say Helen is a good writer. For the fact that this is her debut novel, her writing style is impressive and I would want to read other books written by her.


So, our book for October is, 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky and by God's grace, I'll share my thoughts on it by the first week of November. Feel free to join the club. New members are very much welcome.

If you've read 'The Icarus Girl', please share your thoughts with me in the comment's section, It's always a pleasure reading your feedback. And also, if you have any book recommendation(s), let me know as well.

Do enjoy the rest of your week.
xo, Evita.