The debut novel from Yomi Adegoke, author of 2018’s bestselling Slay in Your Lane, finds an Insta-obsessed couple’s world blown apart after a list of alleged sexual predators is anonymously published online. It’s early in the morning, and Ola, an outspoken feminist and journalist on a women’s magazine named Womxxxn, is hungover after spending an evening at a private members’ club in Soho, London, with her fiance, Michael, whom she first met at a networking event for up-and-coming Black Britons. When she idly looks at “the list” on a publicly accessible spreadsheet, she sees that Michael – a podcaster who recently landed his dream job at a lifestyle startup – has been accused of harassment, threatening behaviour and assault at a Christmas party.
Sheila Atim and Arinzé Kene deftly narrate this story, which is already being developed for TV, from the alternating perspectives of our two protagonists. Prior to this very public scandal, the pair had styled themselves as poster couple for #BlackLove, becoming minor celebrities in the process. Michael appears shocked by the allegations and insists he is innocent. And so, with a month to go before their wedding, Ola – who is torn between her feminist principles and wanting to believe the man she loves – sets him the task of proving it. In documenting the strain on their relationship in the countdown to their wedding, Adegoke provides an acute and often chilling portrait of the power of social media, the online rush to judgment, and the grey areas between guilt and innocence.
• The List is available via 4th Estate, 11hr 41min
Further listening
Thunderclap
Laura Cumming, Penguin Audio, 7hr 39min
The Observer art critic reads her luminous memoir-cum-biography of her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming and the 17th-century Dutch artist Carel Fabritius, who died in a gunpowder explosion aged 32.
A Slice of Fried Gold
Nick Frost, Blink Publishing, 10hr 4min
The Spaced actor looks back on a life obsessed by food, kitchens and cooking in this poignant and funny memoir. Read by the author.
