Leave Your Mess at Home

“A heartfelt story about how we reconcile the people we once were to become who we’re truly meant to be.” —Real Simple

“As you read “Leave Your Mess at Home,” think “Soul Food” meets “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.” It’s an emotional roller coaster that interrogates our loyalty, forgiveness and unconditional love for family and self.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Akinola’s debut novel centers four siblings who are forced back together for Thanksgiving and have to deal with all the resentment, history, and unconditional love that comes with family. If your spring reading list needs drama with heart, this one should be on it.” —BET

“A stunning debut that does not shy away from the messiness of young adulthood and the chaos of discovering who you are. It balances the complexity of navigating a question that haunts most children of immigrants: what do we owe to our families and what do we owe to ourselves?”—Electric Lit

“Striking, smart…. There’s a tenderness to the Longe family, even amid their bitterest struggles.”—BookPage

“[A] sensitive portrayal of how family dynamics can be stifling and how seeing things from only one perspective means missing out on the full picture. This debut novel is an exquisitely observed portrait of an impactful two-month slice of one immigrant family’s complicated experience in this country.”—Booklist (starred review)
“An incredible and moving debut centered on one family’s dysfunction that probes questions of familial belonging and duty, immigration and identity, harm and healing . . . With great care and no small amount of humor, Akinola explores the hidden toll of secrets and buried resentments over decades spent loving one another within the bounds of a messy, imperfect family. Heartfelt and heartbreaking.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“In taking such an intimate yet wide-reaching approach to examining the notion of home within the diaspora, Akinola takes part in the tradition of a lineage of Black writers and artists who have done so before her . . . Within this company, Leave Your Mess at Home stands out as an individual (a testament to Akinola’s strength of characterization and world-building) . . . Akinola writes characters with abundant and overflowing lives. But it’s their interiority that is most captivating. We fall in love, throughout the novel, with all four of the narrators, despite their flaws.”—Brooklyn Rail

“I already know Leave Your Mess at Home will be one of my (and your?) favorite books of 2026—it’s such a warm, smart, hilarious, delicious, riveting messed-up-adult-siblings novel and I totally loved it.”—Curtis Sittenfeld, NYT bestselling author of Romantic Comedy

“Tolani Akinola is a gifted, powerful new voice in American fiction. Her writing is sharp and wonderfully textured—capturing the nuances and complexities and, yes, messiness of the relationships within one immigrant family, in every permutation. There are multiple messes in Leave Your Mess At Home; I loved reading about every one of them. This is a novel that captures the reality of our imperfect ways of loving—and reminds us that love still matters.” —Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans

“Leave Your Mess at Home is a shimmering, consuming, exuberant debut that is just bursting with life. Tolani Akinola is a born storyteller.”—Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street

“Leave Your Mess At Home has all the long-buried secrets, simmering rivalries, and siblings failing at adulthood you could want from a family drama. It has all the love, sex, and scandal you could ask from a page-turner. It’s full of smart, generous, timely exploration of issues of immigration, race, class, violence, gender, sexuality, social media, generational dynamics…this book covers a lot of impressive ground. In short, whatever you love in a novel, you’ll find it in this one. Tolani Akinola’s debut has it all.”—Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This Is How It Always Is and Family, Family

“What a thrill to read a novel so alive. I tore through it, laughing out loud, aching for the Longe siblings as they unraveled, rooting for them like they were mine. Tolani Akinola writes family estrangement with such honesty and insight, capturing the ways we push away the people we love to protect ourselves, yet still reach back for them. Leave Your Mess at Home is vibrant, incisive, and hilarious, a truly remarkable debut.” —Essie Chambers, bestselling author of Swift River

“There’s more than one way to hold family shame and the Longe siblings prove that in Tolani Akinola’s wise, funny, and engrossing debut. This is the kind of book I’m always hoping to find in the bookstore. Funny, insightful, and full of drama that had me torn between racing to the end and savoring every sentence. I was charmed by the Longe siblings, even as they broke each other’s hearts.”—Aisha Muharrar, author of Loved One

“In Leave Your Mess At Home, all hell breaks hilariously and heartbreakingly loose for the Longe family before the healing finally crawls in. Funny, fraught, and incredibly relatable, this one is for you—for every one of us. Familial estrangement, the trials and tribulations of assimilation, devious deacons, a mother’s betrayal, the pain of complicity, the costs of perfectionism, the relief of reconciliation, whatever your jam, you will find it in this novel.”—Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees and Harry Sylvester Bird

“[Leave Your Mess at Home] is a family drama that doesn’t lean too hard into sentimentality . . . The dialogue is realistic, and at times provides the novel with welcome doses of humor. . . Akinola handles difficult themes with grace.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Eldest daughter syndrome meets the social media era with a twist on a lovely Chicago bridge.”—HelloBeautiful

“At times amusing and other times heartbreaking, this thought-provoking novel examines dramatic yet relatable family dynamics, complete with resentment and unconditional love.”—ArtsATL

“A gift to readers with a yen for complicated family dramas. . . . Not all the Longe children are likeable, but over the course of the story, readers will find that every character is richly drawn, interesting, and understandable.”—425 Magazine

“A funny and touching debut.”—Scary Mommy