Americanah
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Reviewed by Jess
📕📗📘📙
If it’s on your to-read pile, I would recommend bumping it up higher!
At its core it’s portrayed as a love story - Ifemelu and Obinze are childhood sweethearts, and the story centres itself on their lives both apart and together, but really it’s so much more than that.
It’s an adept commentary on immigration, success as an immigrant, western culture, class and even black hair, but importantly it’s about race and America’s attempts to reconcile with its past racism and segregation. Ifemelu blogs about her experiences as a black woman and I imagine these excerpts will be uncomfortable and eye opening to those who have not witnessed it.
She’s a very real, flawed character and I kind of loved that too.
What I liked the most was the fact that this easily span two decades of their life but you never lose touch with what’s happening, and also the rich immersion into Nigerian life and culture, which was new to me! And I loved it.
Overall though? I think the book was maybe a little too long and some of it was superfluous, but it’s clearly passionately written and a very human story.
