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glitterbomb47's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
futurama1979's review against another edition
4.0
⟶ 4.5/5 stars
This book genuinely wowed me. Adichie took themes as varying and love and relationships, identity and politics, convergence and contrast, and home, weaving them together masterfully, painfully, and realistically in these five hundred odd pages. And the reason these all fit together is that they are all contained in one experience for these two characters - they seem maybe disparate themes, but they aren't. They are the immigrant experience, perfectly encapsulated. The book is well tied together and everything fits perfectly.
And talk about a gripping narrative! It is on the longer side for its genre, there's no denying that, and there wasn't a single time for me that it felt like I was trudging through it. The flow and narrative were so well handled it seemed like I was just blowing through pages. Really interest-holding the entire way through; not a single moment where I wished Adichie had cut down on length.
I've thought a lot about this book as a traditional hero's journey plot after a discussion about it with one of my classmates and, really, this mapping of it tracks. Thinking about it this way made me realize that the home Ifem has to return to and then work to settle into again is not Lagos, but Obinze. Their love story, while not the constant focus of the novel, is definitely a driving force of it, and how magnificent it is. We all want to be completely understood and accepted and adored, and for Ifem and Obinze they were meant to have this with each other. And their love story is what really reached me the most- the level of connection they had, and familiarity, and puzzle-piece-ness is so beautiful I just couldn't wait to find out what happened to them and if they would get back together.
All in all a gorgeous novel that was at once day-in-the-life and extraordinary. Don't let the page count scare you!
This book genuinely wowed me. Adichie took themes as varying and love and relationships, identity and politics, convergence and contrast, and home, weaving them together masterfully, painfully, and realistically in these five hundred odd pages. And the reason these all fit together is that they are all contained in one experience for these two characters - they seem maybe disparate themes, but they aren't. They are the immigrant experience, perfectly encapsulated. The book is well tied together and everything fits perfectly.
And talk about a gripping narrative! It is on the longer side for its genre, there's no denying that, and there wasn't a single time for me that it felt like I was trudging through it. The flow and narrative were so well handled it seemed like I was just blowing through pages. Really interest-holding the entire way through; not a single moment where I wished Adichie had cut down on length.
I've thought a lot about this book as a traditional hero's journey plot after a discussion about it with one of my classmates and, really, this mapping of it tracks. Thinking about it this way made me realize that the home Ifem has to return to and then work to settle into again is not Lagos, but Obinze. Their love story, while not the constant focus of the novel, is definitely a driving force of it, and how magnificent it is. We all want to be completely understood and accepted and adored, and for Ifem and Obinze they were meant to have this with each other. And their love story is what really reached me the most- the level of connection they had, and familiarity, and puzzle-piece-ness is so beautiful I just couldn't wait to find out what happened to them and if they would get back together.
All in all a gorgeous novel that was at once day-in-the-life and extraordinary. Don't let the page count scare you!
caite's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-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? No
5.0
wrzenie's review against another edition
5.0
4,75. Ciężko się oderwać. Momentami pojawia się niewygodne uczucie, jakby każda właściwie postawa wobec rasizmu była niewłaściwa, bo jest wokół niego tak wiele niuansów, że osobom spoza kręgu kulturowego bohaterki trudno się w tym rozeznać (automatycznie miałaby im być nadana intuicja albo wiedza, którą niekoniecznie mogą zyskać, wychowując się w innej rzeczywistości).
emselilly's review against another edition
4.0
This book is so immersive, it was fun to read. One quote I like from goes something like I hate when people ask what your book is about, like it's supposed to be about one thing. I like this style of writing, it's less like reading a book than having a best friend tell you all about their life, and I feel like I've learned something from it.
sbosch's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
gadicohen93's review against another edition
3.0
At what point did my feelings about this book start declining, from a near-5 to about a 3?
Perhaps when I got sick of the way Ifem and Obinze judged people, looked at people, the way they could know everything about a person just by looking at them and never returned to edit their impressions, the way they thought other characters “would always” do something, as if people were simply bags of personality traits and ideologies, robots programmed from an early age to do everything the writer’s asked them to, rather than flesh-and-blood human beings with doubts and intuitions and actions taken unsystematically. (That is not to say that I wasn’t captured by Adichie’s characters; their insecurities seemed real, their motives clear, their interactions with other characters fraught with gears turning under the metal.) In a novel whose strongest points were characters being shot down for making grand generalizations and stereotypes and unrequited racial sweeps, this veneer of complexity (which became apparent to me only about halfway through) disturbed me.
Perhaps it was when I realized what a telenovela this book had become. At first, I swooned over its ambition; it was going to be 500 pages of honing in on race, on the immigrant experience, on a trans-Atlantic love story... How original, how fascinating! And at many parts, those were the themes and plot movements that really attracted me and fascinated me and kept me reading. But at some point, it overwhelmed me, this ambition. Adichie was trying to make her novel talk about everything. Ifem’s life became a Ferris wheel of men and jobs and friends and events, things coming in and out of her life on their own accord, one following the other – a regular melodrama. Things started seeming slightly arbitrary, unbelievable, which in this book felt like a sort of treason.
Perhaps it was when the writing started feeling stale, unadorned, “lazy” in Blaine’s words – a barely tailored style that seemed to require no additional thought or work than a simple plug and chug of plot and character. 500 pages is a lot to write, and having to think about every word, every sentence uniquely would be an arduous task for any writer. The blog posts, then, were liberating in that way – something different, interesting, believable. Still, overall, lazy.
However, I kept reading. Ifem’s love for Obinze – as well as her affairs with Curt and Blaine – toyed with my romantic side. And Adichie’s treatment of race – the entire framing device of the hair salon, especially – was so honest, so pink and raw, so complex, that I had to read on.
Perhaps when I got sick of the way Ifem and Obinze judged people, looked at people, the way they could know everything about a person just by looking at them and never returned to edit their impressions, the way they thought other characters “would always” do something, as if people were simply bags of personality traits and ideologies, robots programmed from an early age to do everything the writer’s asked them to, rather than flesh-and-blood human beings with doubts and intuitions and actions taken unsystematically. (That is not to say that I wasn’t captured by Adichie’s characters; their insecurities seemed real, their motives clear, their interactions with other characters fraught with gears turning under the metal.) In a novel whose strongest points were characters being shot down for making grand generalizations and stereotypes and unrequited racial sweeps, this veneer of complexity (which became apparent to me only about halfway through) disturbed me.
Perhaps it was when I realized what a telenovela this book had become. At first, I swooned over its ambition; it was going to be 500 pages of honing in on race, on the immigrant experience, on a trans-Atlantic love story... How original, how fascinating! And at many parts, those were the themes and plot movements that really attracted me and fascinated me and kept me reading. But at some point, it overwhelmed me, this ambition. Adichie was trying to make her novel talk about everything. Ifem’s life became a Ferris wheel of men and jobs and friends and events, things coming in and out of her life on their own accord, one following the other – a regular melodrama. Things started seeming slightly arbitrary, unbelievable, which in this book felt like a sort of treason.
Perhaps it was when the writing started feeling stale, unadorned, “lazy” in Blaine’s words – a barely tailored style that seemed to require no additional thought or work than a simple plug and chug of plot and character. 500 pages is a lot to write, and having to think about every word, every sentence uniquely would be an arduous task for any writer. The blog posts, then, were liberating in that way – something different, interesting, believable. Still, overall, lazy.
However, I kept reading. Ifem’s love for Obinze – as well as her affairs with Curt and Blaine – toyed with my romantic side. And Adichie’s treatment of race – the entire framing device of the hair salon, especially – was so honest, so pink and raw, so complex, that I had to read on.
rkata's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
pippipoppy's review
reflective
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? Yes
3.75
kaffefrank's review
reflective
medium-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? Yes
3.5