8.58k reviews for:

Maame

Jessica George

4.17 AVERAGE

emotional inspiring reflective sad 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
dark emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Gorgeous depiction of the pressures placed on the shoulders of young women!
emotional funny 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

This book was just spectacular. 

Maddie Wright, or Maame, was a character I heavily resonated with. 

The book isn't crazy with the plot, there's no sharp turns and twists which is something so lovely. It is simply a young woman navigating life, friendship, love, grief, and direction in her twenties. 

Her thoughts are complex, yet relatable. The story is written in such a lovely and realistic way, my props to Jessica George! I will absolutely be tuning in to her other novels. 
challenging emotional funny 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: Complicated
adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

‘We grow up fast. Not by force, but because we are needed.’
 
Maddie Wright is 25 and tired. Between her role as primary caretaker for her father and aspirations to further her career in publishing, she’s not exactly experiencing life the way her age mates are. She has friends; the type you meet in school and speak to here-and -there. Her Mum, who spends most of her time in Ghana is asking when she will marry, and her brother, well, he’s busy with his own life. When her mum returns to London, Maddie seizes the opportunity to leave her family home and start living her ‘British’ life but when new comes of her father, her new-found freedom is put on pause causing her to reevaluate her journey to womanhood and what it means be an individual both flawed and true.  
 
I’ve read quite a few coming-of-age stories, mostly YA novels, and though I enjoyed them the lessons they teach are often easy to forget. I loved that Jessica centred a woman in her mid-twenties because for most people turning 25 is an era of renewal and change.
 
lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Mér fannst þessi alveg frábær! Ég hámaði hana í mig og þótti svo vænt um aðalpersónuna Maddie og hennar vegferð

Maame is one of the truest reflections of life I have ever read in a book. Jessica George's novel is layered and deep and touches on so much of what it means to be a young woman figuring out how to finish growing up when you were forced to start growing up too young. The main character, Maddie, is smart and caring and responsible, but she is also insecure. She struggles with depression and anxiety, and isn't quite sure how to navigate in the world of dating. Grief wrecks her and heals her, her family and friends weigh on her and carry her. I am not a woman of color, and so there is a depth to this book I will never understand, yet Jessica George still created a character (loosely based on herself) that is relatable in multiple ways. I saw so much of my own self in Maddie and was deeply impacted.
emotional 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