Do you feel Monife’s obsession with Golden Boy impacted how Ebun related to men as she got older, and if so, in what ways?
Yes, I definitely did. I thought Ebun saw what was happening to her sister and believed in the family curse.
Yes, I thought it impacted how Ebun related to men as she got older. I think Ebun resented how Monife’s relationship with Golden Boy impacted the relationship between she and her cousin. I also think that it caused Ebun to keep most of her relationships with men very emotionally superficial.
Yeah, I really felt for Ebun. She watched how Monife was so centered on Golden Boy that Monife wasn’t even her own person anymore. I suspect that Ebun didn’t want to go down that same path so she did a 180 - no involvement at all. I was sorry that she had to wait so long for her chance at love because she was so resistant to joining her life with someone else’s.
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Monife lived in defiance of the curse and threw herself into her relationship with Golden Boy. She was so consumed by emotions that she rejected any kind of reason such as recognizing that Golden Boy was a married man and would not stay with her. I don’t know if that further fueled Ebun’s internalization of the curse, but Ebun seems to have steered the opposite way and was so focused on pragmatics (and belief in the curse) that she discarded her relationship with Osagie.
I think belief in the curse affected both of them. Monife could not allow herself to believe that Golden Boy really loved her and would have defied his parents to marry her - even if they had disowned him. She kept questioning him and eventually resorted to juju to try to overcome the curse. This is what finally drove him away - his realization that she would never trust him.
Then, the same curse affected Ebun who also could not believe in love, but instead made the curse come true because she preferred to do the rejecting, rather than wait to be rejected.
So many insightful previous comments with which I agree. Ebun seemed to turn into herself more as she aged. Colder, withdrawn and accepting of a lonely life.
I feel Ebun watched Mo become obsessed with someone who was out of her class and was doomed because of the curse. I think Ebun made the decision to experience sex without love being involved.
I am in agreement with all these stellar replies- I have nothing new to add but that most of all that Mo dies.
I don’t think we can know the answer as we don’t see her with other men. We also don’t learn enough about her baby daddy until far too late in the book. Why was that story line left so late?
I felt that Monife and Ebun had very different personalities. Monife was a free spirit, very outgoing and confident, with no career ambitions. Ebun was a more introverted, career-minded, cautious person. Because of their differences, I’m not sure that Monife’s obsession with Golden Boy impacted how Ebun related to men.