Live for Me Nkem

<p><strong>A moving story with realistic and well-drawn characters. <em>-Kirkus Reviews</em></strong></p><p><strong>A powerful exploration of the consequences of mental health issues being silenced due to cultural expectations and trauma comparison. -Paria Hassouri award-winning author of <em>Harvesting Rosewater </em>and<em> Found in Transition</em></strong></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>How do you ask for help when your whole life has been built around pretending you're fine?</strong></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Nkem Nzenwa has everything that should make a woman happy: a successful husband beautiful intelligent children and a carefully built life in suburban America. To everyone around her and especially to the Nigerian immigrant community her marriage to Chima looks steady loving even enviable.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>But appearances are fragile.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Behind closed doors Nkem is unraveling under the weight of depression intrusive thoughts and an overwhelming certainty that her family would be better off without her. Terrified of being judged pitied or seen as broken Nkem hides her worsening depression behind smiles and silences.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>As the cracks in her carefully controlled life begin to show her marriage strains under the weight of things left unsaid. Her children sense her withdrawal. Her husband Chima struggles to understand the woman he loves as she slips further away from him. And buried beneath it all are painful truths about family identity and a lifetime spent suppressing her own needs in order to survive.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Told with emotional intimacy and unflinching honesty </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Live for Me Nkem</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)> is an emotionally suspenseful exploration of depression motherhood marriage intergenerational trauma cultural expectations and the quiet ways people learn to keep living when they no longer recognize themselves.</span></p>