What a Time to be Alone by Chidera Eggerue

An inspiring book from start to finish. Chidera teaches you how to love yourself shamelessly and how to put yourself before anyone else with the use of her Igbo (Nigerian ethnicity, culture and language) proverbs recounted to her from her mother. Everyone should learn these basic rules on how to be a mentally sane and strong person. By this I mean that we should not keep toxic people in our lives because they may convince us that they need us or they may be a good laugh. Toxic people will find a way to grab a hold of you until you respect and love yourself to say that enough is enough. Toxic people are temporary and therefore not worth having in your life. If you feel as though you may have family members, friends or partners that belittle, denigrate or deprecate you: Cut. Them. Out. They do not deserve your heart, your time and your kindness.

What a Time to be Alone also reminded me that there is strength in being alone and knowing how you are often your best company. An Italian saying that my family has always said to me is “meglio andare soli che male accompagnati”, which means better to go alone than with bad company. I truly believe this and stand by this statement wholeheartedly. If you do not love being with yourself, then how can you expect anyone else to? The same concept goes with loving yourself: if you do not love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love and accept you for who you are? This is a difficult lesson to learn, especially as a young woman because we are taught to dislike ourselves all throughout puberty from companies that want to profit off our insecurities. This only gets worse the further you are from the ‘ideal beauty standard’ meaning that millions of black and minority women will bleach their skin in an attempt to appear lighter, or will chemically relax their hair to fit into an ideal which is impossible to attain. These companies would include: makeup, cosmetic surgery, chemical skin whiteners, fitness boot camps, fad diet schemes…the list is endless. All of these corporations need us to hate ourselves to the point where we are so desperate that we will buy into whatever they will sell us so we can finally feel accepted. This book teaches you to know that you are enough exactly as you are. You do not need to buy anything to complete you. This is, in my opinion, such an essential lesson to learn and it will continue serving you throughout your life.

Eggerue also made me realise that I should trust my intuition more often. Usually when I get a negative feeling about someone I try to bottle it up and ignore it because I feel as though I should give everyone a chance. However, more often than not my intuition is right and I should have listened to it in the first place. I must also mention that my mum is usually even more right than me and likes to make me aware of this…thanks mamma. In the past, I have had friends that have made me feel insecure and as though I should shrink myself in order for them to feel bigger. I have learnt from this mistake and Chidera’s book only made me realise that I should have cut them off sooner. Lesson learnt.

In conclusion, this book is a great book for people with insecurities and battles that they are facing within themselves. However, I would not say that it is an essential for everybody because many people may already know these facts of life. I only say this because I think that Chidera could have gone deeper and added more details to the book, therefore making it more enriching. Nevertheless, I believe this book is great if you are feeling a bit low about yourself or about your life as it gives you an essential confidence boost. This book is especially important for young girls and I will be sure to give this book to my sister soon!