The Blessed Girl by Angela Makholwa: A Review

With settings and author South African, The blessed girl is my first South African read and it was an awesome book. A chick-lit, breezy but heavily themed book, a different tone from the usual chick lits and an engaging read.

We are introduced to the lead character, Bontle.The beginning pages were quite boring, I was getting exasperated with, Bontle. Bontle is a nut case and a ‘blessed girl’; these are ladies who live a luxurious lifestyle sponsored by men especially ones they sleep with, the men are called ‘blessers’.

I can see you already judging her 😂, yeah did that too, but as the story came along I had to remove every judgemental thought and enjoy the story.

Bontle’s life is a crazy one, the story is written like a letter to the reader, where she narrates how amazing life has been for her or not.

Bontle comes from the slum, her mum runs a bar and she has decided to live a life filled with glamorous things money can buy but is she really satisfied and what exactly is she hoping to achieve in life? We are taken through her life as a businesswoman, a contractor, her bougie life and managing four men ‘blessers’.

Bontle is a selfish, conniving bitch who isn’t ashamed of the heights she can attain to get what she wants, you will judge her definitely, I mean we are humans and who wouldn’t, she did the most while being married.

We meet everyone who influences Bontle’s life, Golokile, ‘her brother’, her mum, her husband, Ntokozo, her friends Iris and Tsholo. What happens when she meets Iris’s blesser, Mr Emmanuel?

Told as a story from a tabloid you would uncover Bontle’s layers, experience her life and understand why she made her choices. A lot of lessons to be learnt, two which stuck the most were how we shouldn’t always judge people without understanding their situation and the effect of blessers to the young mind. Apparently, in South Africa, there was an upsurge of men ‘blessers’ who were enticing the young girls and abandoning them with different problems.

I loved how at the end, Bontle gets her life a bit sorted out and every situation in her life comes full circle. The author Angela has a way with words, I loved the infusion of South African names, exclamations and how fun it was to read this book.

Despite being a light read, this book touches on a lot of strong themes. From depression, teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking to parenting, patriarchy and so on.

Bontle is a gorgeous, intelligent, smart woman, who lives a rich, fast life, from body enhancements to living in high rise buildings, dinners, juggling blessers to experiencing the reality of life. You would love it.

This was the book clubs read of may and we loved it, Bontle made everyone crazy but in the end, we loved her, well some of us😂😂, you would too. To get a copy, you can place an order at Roving Heights or Bookmarket NG.

Till the next post! Don’t forget to tag me when you read any book posted on the blog so we can discuss it!

I will be attending a book reading of A broken people’s playlist by Chimeka Garricks and here’s hoping it would be an exciting one, a blog post on the book will be up soon! Bye!!