I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Changing Man by Tomi Oyemakinde
Published by Feiwel & Friends on 9/26/23
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Face front. Watch your back. BE BRAVE.

If it was left to her, Ife Adebola wouldn’t be starting at Nithercott School. Because despite her being in the Urban Achievers scholarship program, her parents can barely afford the tuition. No matter who is trying to be friends with her, like her classmate Bijal, or how much the prestigious boarding school tries to pull her in, Ife is determined not to get caught up in any of it.

But when another student, Malika, begins acting strange, Ife can’t help but wonder if there’s more going on at Nithercott than she realizes. Could there be any truth to the school’s decades-old legend of the Changing
Man? Is there any connection to the missing older brother of her classmate, Ben?

As more questions arise, Ife has no choice but to team up with Ben and Bijal to investigate. But can the trio act quickly enough to uncover who is behind everything, before one—or all—of them is the Changing Man’s next victim?

Short and Sweet Review

Ife is attending Nithercott school, but if she had the choice she wouldn’t be. Her family can barely afford the tuition and Ife doesn’t want anything to do with the other students or the school itself. The school has a legend called the changing man which Ife just considers a story that every school has, but when her friend Malika starts behaving differently she knows something is wrong. Ife teams up with Bijal who seems to know everything about the school, and Ben whose brother has recently gone missing. The more the trio dig the more they realize they’re in over their heads.

This book was not what I was expecting, I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. When I heard the school has a legend called the changing man I thought it would be something supernatural but I was way off on that account. Our main character Ife goes to this fancy school and everyone knows she’s on scholarship so she’s treated differently but she doesn’t care because she doesn’t want to be at the school or even liked by the other kids. Another student, Ben, his older brother goes missing and he believes it was the changing man but Ife doesn’t, not until her friend Malika goes missing and comes back a totally different person. Ife and Ben team up and eventually invite Bijal the know it all to help them. I will say Ife was a hard character to like, I think she didn’t want to get attached but the way she would push people away and the way she talked to Bijal who is one of the sweetest people was off-putting. One of the characters told Ife that she was selfish and only cared about herself and not anyone else involved and I agree, she needed to hear about how awfully she was treating people. I did like Bijal she knew a lot about the school she was like Velma from Scooby-Doo very logical and full of great ideas. I’m not sure what to make of Ben, I think he was light hearted and that was his way of dealing with his brother going missing. I did like how these three would sneak around campus at night and follow clues which would lead them closer to finding out what’s happening to the students. I will say the end result was a bit out of nowhere and not what I thought would happen. If I could describe what really happened I would say its a bit like the X Files.

Overall, this was an okay book. The plot sounded interesting but in the end I felt a bit let down because I was wanting something different. Ife was a character I found hard to connect with and I thought Ben and Bijal were better even thought they were secondary characters. Again, I was excited to read this especially after reading the synopsis but this just didn’t deliver.