Reviews with content warning for Racism - Americanah

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

73 reviews

yourlocalscrivener's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

If you enjoy contemporary literary fiction, this book is for you. Since I'm not a huge fan of literary fiction and began reading this without looking at the Storygraph classification, I believed that this book was heavier on the star-crossed romance than it was. In fact, it's more a novel about Ifemelu's experiences coming to and living in America. I liked Obinze for all except the final chapters, but he's really not a main character in the story. He's more of a side character at best.
Once I readjusted my preconceived notions about the story, I came to enjoy it. It tackles quite a few dark topics besides racism (read trigger warnings). Adichie's writing of the flash backs and flash forwards requires an active reader. Nevertheless, her writing style kept me going even when the story dragged for me in the second half. Also, as other reviewers have noted, the ending is comparatively abrupt to the rest of the story, and... morally questionable.
The book did encourage me to reflect on myself though, in a non-pretentious way.
Overall, it didn't encourage me to seek out more literary fiction, but I'm definitely willing to give Half of a Yellow Sun a go for Adichie's writing.

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samarakroeger's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

hated the ending but loved most of the book

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courtneyfalling's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-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? Yes

4.5

My girlfriend recommended this book, and I'm so glad she did! It definitely deserves its status as a new classic. Ifemelu especially has a wildly impressive and intricate interiority, which is fascinating from a character who’s also often scared of her own interiority. Lots of insight and slow, well-crafted plot. I'm only knocking the half a point because I wanted just a little more conclusion from the ending, with how much of these characters' lives we had seen.

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anneroza's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring 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

Beautiful.

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nataliebootlah's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

Americanah is a tale of two lands—Nigeria and America—and two people.

Ifemelu and Obinze are in love but are forced to move away from one another. Ifemelu moves to America with hopes that Obinze will follow by way of London. Soon fifteen years have passed without seeing one another. And so goes the tale of the journeys that will eventually lead them back to Nigeria and to each other.

I’m not sure how I felt about this one. The book description is of a love story, but it seemed the love story was more of a plot device. To me, the spotlight focused on the experiences surrounding immigration, race, and identity that Ifemelu and Obinze each faced during their respective immigration into the US and the UK. That element of the story was done well and it opened my eyes to experiences I would otherwise never experience firsthand.

That being said, I couldn’t connect to or even root for Ifemelu and Obinze’s relationship. It fell flat to me and I was left wanting more out of their individual journeys. Ultimately, not my favorite read.

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vgp's review

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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? No

4.0

I think this is a necessary book to understand racism in it’s multiple forms, many subtle to those not suffering it. Black hair as an example of my ignorance and as a example pf how deep is the believe system set around race.
I loved the account of migration stories to the States and to Britain. Feeling like an outsider everywhere, struggling with the cultural nuisances. And then, the stories of being pushed to the limits of a person until it breaks.
I could not relate and got a bit bored with some of the parts of the life in Lagos, but that’s just one side of all those that compose the life of Ifemelu.

————
Some quotes:

“she had not had a bold epiphany […] it was simply that layer after layer of discontent had settled in her, and formed a mass that now propelled her”.
“what she would often feel with him: a self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was the right size.”
“It’s a bit tiresome to talk about America as being insular, […] since if something major happens [there] it is the headline in Britain; something major happens here, it is on the back page in America”.
“countries in Europe were based on exclusion and not, as in America, on inclusion.”
“the other guests […] understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people […] conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things […] to leave”.

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mye8503's review against another edition

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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

4.0

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riverofpages's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense 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? It's complicated

5.0

Just a masterpiece. A dialogue between the diaspora that needs to continue. It feels like a “choose your own adventure” book where many options are possible because it very much resembles real life, except you always wind up choosing what the author writes anyway. I’m now going to devour everything she writes.

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purplehulk713's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This novel was real. Adichie is a master of weaving the complexity of personality, especially when it comes to character flaws. You feel for her characters and suffer with them. Ifemelu is powerful but depressed, assured but insecure. Her situation in America precludes her from her true behavior because of the many racial constructs, like how she relaxes her hair for the longest time but it ends up physically burning her scalp until the point that she realizes that it is so much wiser to let her hair grow naturally. It’s an excellent parallel to her growth as a character and the novel’s theme of sincerity—initially Ifemelu tries very hard to assimilate for advantage in American society, trying to adopt an accent and lying about how long she has lived there. She learns that being genuine is a privilege in American society, not a given. My interest in the novel rather waned in the last one hundred pages perhaps because the novel is quite long or because I thought Ifemelu’s homecoming and reintroduction to Nigeria wasn’t as interesting as Adichie’s exploration of race in America from an outsider’s perspective. But I was quite satisfied with the ending, which brought everything full circle and showed the protagonists the benefits of a genuine relationship. This novel asks us to embrace the truth of ourselves but with a depth and subtlety greater than that of a novel for children.

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carodonahue's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

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