Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected"--

Americanah

Americanah is a slow book mainly following the life of Ifemelu, a Nigerian teen that moves to the USA and eventually back to Nigeria.

This is a very hard book to "rate". Based on how I enjoyed it, it goes from a one star slog at times to a five star beautifully written scene in many moments. Based on how it made me think, it's a great collection of important points, a perspective that is clearly rare when the usual race conversations in "americancentric" media are explored, but it is also often heavy handed, so much that it makes you annoyed at how some characters or moments are too much of a prototype or a means to an end. Ifemelu - who's poignant blog posts we get to read interspersed through the book -, feels smart but too blinded by her own perspective on many things (not only "race") for how smart she is written to be.

Her story includes multiple different romantic and familial relationships which are explored to interesting points, although there is one common thread that made me so mad at the main character I just eyerolled over and over at times.

If you like long stories, don't mind preachy authorial voices and are interested in defiant perspectives on racism, go for it. If you prefer focused books, if you hate to feel the opinions of the author in your face (they are always there, but in Americanah you feel them whether you want to or not) or if you think you already know enough about Adichie's ideas, I'd recommend avoiding this.

On a more serious note, one can like the book or not, like the characters or not, like the author or not, but the intellectual contribution of Adichie's perspective was refreshing and is still important more than a decade after Americanah was published.

André Nóbrega

Americanah is a slow book mainly following the life of Ifemelu, a Nigerian teen that moves to the USA and eventually back to Nigeria.

This is a very hard book to "rate". Based on how I enjoyed it, it goes from a one star slog at times to a five star beautifully written scene in many moments. Based on how it made me think, it's a great collection of important points, a perspective that is clearly rare when the usual race conversations in "americancentric" media are explored, but it is also often heavy handed, so much that it makes you annoyed at how some characters or moments are too much of a prototype or a means to an end. Ifemelu - who's poignant blog posts we get to read interspersed through the book -, feels smart but too blinded by her own perspective on many things (not only "race") for how smart she is written to be.

Her story includes multiple different romantic and familial relationships which are explored to interesting points, although there is one common thread that made me so mad at the main character I just eyerolled over and over at times.

If you like long stories, don't mind preachy authorial voices and are interested in defiant perspectives on racism, go for it. If you prefer focused books, if you hate to feel the opinions of the author in your face (they are always there, but in Americanah you feel them whether you want to or not) or if you think you already know enough about Adichie's ideas, I'd recommend avoiding this.

On a more serious note, one can like the book or not, like the characters or not, like the author or not, but the intellectual contribution of Adichie's perspective was refreshing and is still important more than a decade after Americanah was published.

Americanah

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