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iina's review against another edition
4.0
An easy to read yet not ultra light book, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney* tells the story of Nnenna, a daughter of an English mother and a Nigerian father. It is not, however, entirely focused on Nnenna, as she, her mother Joanie, and Joanie’s friend Jonathan share the narrative. Occasionally, others dip in, too, with varying success.
I enjoyed reading this book, found it fun to breeze through as it is written in a smooth language that takes you through issues of race, class and belonging (as well as teenage problems) without you even noticing it; it’s all natural, and belongs in the narrative of the novel. It combines two timelines and places: 2009, when Nnenna is 16 in Manchester, and the Cambridge of the early 1990s, where her parents meet, and most of the time these two work well alongside each other.
I do feel like more focus should’ve been on Nnenna and her mother, instead of the other characters (especially towards the end, where I sometimes got confused as the pace got faster and faster), but this is still a refreshing book I can recommend to pretty much anyone.
*Copy sent to me by the publisher, Dialogue Books, all thoughts & opinions my own.
I enjoyed reading this book, found it fun to breeze through as it is written in a smooth language that takes you through issues of race, class and belonging (as well as teenage problems) without you even noticing it; it’s all natural, and belongs in the narrative of the novel. It combines two timelines and places: 2009, when Nnenna is 16 in Manchester, and the Cambridge of the early 1990s, where her parents meet, and most of the time these two work well alongside each other.
I do feel like more focus should’ve been on Nnenna and her mother, instead of the other characters (especially towards the end, where I sometimes got confused as the pace got faster and faster), but this is still a refreshing book I can recommend to pretty much anyone.
*Copy sent to me by the publisher, Dialogue Books, all thoughts & opinions my own.
abbystevenson's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
steffiingrem's review against another edition
2.0
I didn’t love it, and I found it hard to get into, but it did grab my attention. I felt for the main characters, although I wanted to know a bit more about their lives. And for a while, I couldn’t work out where the storyline was going, and was disappointed a little at the end to see that it still didn’t go where I thought it would!
A very well written book, but just not for me!
A very well written book, but just not for me!
ruthrebecca's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
ruthjenkins's review
emotional
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The title is misleading because Nnenna doesn't have a lot of joy in her life, mainly anxiety and a lacklustre boyfriend. Her relationship with her mother is strong, almost a friendship, but it becomes strained with Nnenna's increasing independence as a teenager and her wish to know about her absent Nigerian father. Their relationship reminded me or Lorelei and Rory in Gilmore Girls, and the large cast of interesting and diverting side characters made it a slightly grittier Mancunian version. I thought the author goes a little too easy on Nnenna's mother for some very questionable and dysfunctional decisions, leaving a slightly sour note at the end of a very good book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Pregnancy and Racism
Minor: Sexual content and Vomit
sarahkjs's review
emotional
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
goldfishtish's review against another edition
3.0
This is a delightful book in many ways: funny, full of well written characters, rich with insight into the experience of being mixed race and struggling to find your identity, of clashing with a parent who loves you as you grow into adulthood. I have very warm feelings towards it, which is why I feel bad that I felt some aspects didn’t totally work.
The writing style is overall great—wry and genuinely funny, with dry but devastatingly insightful observations and a generous hand with adjectives and adverbs—but it also veers sharply between conversational and more mannered in a way that can feel odd. And some elements feel gimmicky, like a repeated technique where we are told only one side of a conversation, all in one long paragraph, which is difficult to read and means unnaturally moving all the exposition into that character’s dialogue. The dialogue is at its best when Nnenna imagines overwrought conversations between people, which always made me laugh while also giving us a window into Nnenna’s worries, but can be a bit flat in normal conversations.
The characters feel three dimensional, like they all have inner lives, even the tertiary ones, but we know that because we spend a bit too much time with them, especially in a relatively short book. A scene might drop hints of Nnenna’s lunchtime anxiety and delve into her profound thoughts about beauty and what it means to ‘have’ something that is in the eye of the beholder, but along the way it keeps darting off course into her BFF Steph’s struggles with French A-Level and her boyfriend Dan’s second tier friend’s sexual exploits until you don’t really find out what is going on with Nnenna in that scene. Some characters, like Jonathan, seem like they will have more plot than they do.
Nnenna is wonderful, and I wish this book had been as much about her as I thought it would be based on the title. In reality, the book is probably a third about Nnenna, a third about about her mother (who I had much more mixed feelings about, and whose 1992 plot line started well but kind of fizzled out), and a third about random other characters.
Everything I've said is relatively minor, and I did like the book, but it felt frustratingly as if a different editor could have ironed these things out and made it even better than it was.
The writing style is overall great—wry and genuinely funny, with dry but devastatingly insightful observations and a generous hand with adjectives and adverbs—but it also veers sharply between conversational and more mannered in a way that can feel odd. And some elements feel gimmicky, like a repeated technique where we are told only one side of a conversation, all in one long paragraph, which is difficult to read and means unnaturally moving all the exposition into that character’s dialogue. The dialogue is at its best when Nnenna imagines overwrought conversations between people, which always made me laugh while also giving us a window into Nnenna’s worries, but can be a bit flat in normal conversations.
The characters feel three dimensional, like they all have inner lives, even the tertiary ones, but we know that because we spend a bit too much time with them, especially in a relatively short book. A scene might drop hints of Nnenna’s lunchtime anxiety and delve into her profound thoughts about beauty and what it means to ‘have’ something that is in the eye of the beholder, but along the way it keeps darting off course into her BFF Steph’s struggles with French A-Level and her boyfriend Dan’s second tier friend’s sexual exploits until you don’t really find out what is going on with Nnenna in that scene. Some characters, like Jonathan, seem like they will have more plot than they do.
Nnenna is wonderful, and I wish this book had been as much about her as I thought it would be based on the title. In reality, the book is probably a third about Nnenna, a third about about her mother (who I had much more mixed feelings about, and whose 1992 plot line started well but kind of fizzled out), and a third about random other characters.
Everything I've said is relatively minor, and I did like the book, but it felt frustratingly as if a different editor could have ironed these things out and made it even better than it was.
helenmcd's review against another edition
dark
funny
hopeful
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
drizcoll's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5