Review 1:
"Juxtaposed against the clarity and revelation in Akpan's prose--as translucent a style as I've read in a long while--we find subjects that nearly render the mind helpless and throw the heart into a hopeless erratic rhythm out of fear, out of pity, out of the shame of being only a few degrees of separation removed from these monstrous modern circumstances."
05/31/2008
Review 2:
"[A] startling debut collection....[Akpan] fuses a knowledge of African poverty and strife with a conspicuously literary approach to storytelling, filtering tales of horror through the wide eyes of the young. In each of the tales in SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM a protagonist's childlike innocence is ultimately savaged by the facts of African life."
06/27/2008
Review 3:
"Akpan's prose is beautiful and his stories are insightful and revealing, made even more harrowing because all the horror--and there is much--is seen through the eyes of children." (starred review)
04/14/2008
Review 4:
"[A] stunning achievement. This book is brave, it's terrifying, and it has the disconcerting effect of making a lot of other contemporary fiction seem so much inconsequential drivel."
04/11/2009
Review 5:
"This is heartfelt reportage, written with a poet's eye for telling details....an extremely impressive collection..."
09/01/2008