Narrated by A’rese Emokpae, Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola has a runtime of 11 hrs 54 mins on Audible.
Publisher’s Summary
“Warm, smart, hilarious, delicious, riveting.”—Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of Romantic Comedy
“Powerful… There are multiple messes in Leave Your Mess At Home; I loved reading about every one of them.”—Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans
**A Best Book of April: People, The Millions, Atlantic Journal-Constitution, The Root, Muses of Media
**A Most Anticipated Book of 2026: Electric Lit, SheReads, HelloBeautiful, ScaryMommy
The Longe siblings are really botching their parents’ American Dream.
Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She’s a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren’t doing much better.
Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America.
Sola’s unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents’ Thanksgiving table, a decade’s worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore.
In the wreckage of their fateful reunion, each Longe is forced to reckon with the past, take stock of what really matters, and find a way back to each other. Big-hearted, hilarious, and wise, Leave Your Mess At Home is a poignant exploration of forgiveness, unconditional love, and becoming who you want to be, asking the question: what do we owe to our families, and what do we owe to ourselves?
Audiobook Details
- Narrated by: A’rese Emokpae
- Length: 11 hrs 54 mins
- Publisher: Penguin Audio
- Release year: 2026
- Audible category: Literature & Fiction / Genre Fiction / Family Life
Listener Ratings
Leave Your Mess at Home holds an average listener rating of 4.6/5 from 126 Audible ratings.
On Audible, ratings for this title break down into narration performance and story separately:
- Performance (narration): 4.7/5
- Story: 4.5/5
- 5-star ratings: 71% of all ratings
What Audible Listeners Are Saying
5/5 stars — “Beautiful and layered story”
Great depth of characters. Family complexity, joy and strife, captured so well. Universal story with wonderful voice.— H. Downs, Audible listener
5/5 stars — “Wonderful “
I really enjoyed listening to this book. It was a good example of a complex family. I liked how the author was able to let the listener know and understand each character.— Amazon Customer, Audible listener
5/5 stars — “Deeply Heartfelt Story of culture, love and family “
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. As a Ghanaian American who grew up between Ghana and the U.S., this story deeply resonated with me. The accents were authentic and the story was very realistic , inviting the reader a glimpse into what it means to have a foot in two different cultures. 10/10 definitely recommended.— Eliza Thompson, Audible listener
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