Our host Vick Hope is joined by Oti Mabuse.
Oti is a South African broadcaster, author and world-champion dancer. She captured the hearts of the British public on Strictly Come Dancing, and is the only dancer to have won the show twice in a row – in 2019 and 2020. She’s presented and judged on a host of prime-time TV shows, including entertaining young children during lockdown with her CBeebies show Boogie Beebies, and her children’s book series Dance with Oti celebrates dance and expressing your feelings by way of the penguin waltz and the turtle tango. She has also toured nationwide with her solo entertainment shows I Am Here and Viva Carnival, and most recently she released her debut romantic fiction novel, Slow Burn.
Listen to the full episode here and read on to discover Oti’s five most influential books by women.
“This was the one that really connected with me because it was about the message, what do you say to yourself to convince yourself that you can do something, and what do you say to convince yourself that you can’t do something. And this book was a lot about the words you put out into the world because those words bounce back and they stay in our heads. When you set out to achieve a goal, you don’t say I want this to happen, it’s what are the steps I need to do to achieve that goal. It’s also really great for finance because I think it’s really important for women that we are financially stable and financially literate.”
“I recently listened to this one on audio and I had it on double speed just because I wanted to get through it so much. I went to bed listening, like I was so obsessed with it, and I think why I am obsessed with it is because it’s about religion – I’m Christian, but I love and respect all religions and I think the more we read about other people who are not like us, the more we are open-minded, and it is all about education. And I love the relationship Nadia has with Sara and her ambition to do something good. You’re rooting for both of them, you’re rooting for her and her mum where you’re like yeah some of us do have rocky relationships with our mum, not every mother-daughter relationship is perfect, but then you see how that relationship reflects on her relationship with Sara.”
“I’m obsessed with Hannah Grace. Hannah Grace is not her real name. Nobody knows her identity. I keep asking the publisher – because we have the same publisher – I keep asking is this you? Are you Hannah Grace? And they’re like no, Oti, we’re not going to tell you who it is. I’ve read a lot of her books. And what I love about all her books is that they build throughout so you see the connections develop, but this one is the first one and Anastasia is this feisty, really small figure skater and you think she’s hardcore and a badass and no one can take her down, but then you see on the other side that she experiences so much toxic abuse from her own partner, the partner that she’s dancing with. And then we meet Nate, who is the captain of the Hockey team, and he is very responsible and nothing will get in the way of him winning this championship…but then who is this girl? And why is she in the way?”
“I love Tia Williams – A Love Song for Ricky is one of my favourites. First of all, I love how feisty Audre is, right? She’s just a whiny little teenager who I feel like is so misunderstood, but as a firstborn – and I feel like firstborn daughters ask this a lot, where they’re like I wasn’t loved long enough by myself. So she’s giving firstborn daughter energy completely, hence baby goblin.”
“I feel like I’ve had friends who’ve been in relationships like this and I would have given them this book to be like “Hey, I’m not saying this is happening to you, but maybe take a read of this and if you identify anything within it let’s have a chat.””
