Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Americanah

“Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.”

“Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You’re caged in.”

Americanah chronologies the lives of Nigerian immigrants, Ifemelu and Obinze, an engaged couple. Ifemelu legally enters the United States of America, while Obinze swiftly becomes an undocumented immigrant in London, England. The couple is soon separated by unforeseen circumstances and must rely on themselves to adjust to their new lives. Wrapped in the romance of the two main characters, the readers are thrown into the lives of numerous African immigrants as they navigate America and the UK.

An impressive number of issues are touched upon in Americanah. We watch the African immigrants grapple with the foreign concept of race and adjust and adapt their thinking towards other black ethnic groups in America and the UK. We watch how the pressures placed on immigrant teens can wreak havoc on their personal lives, resulting in suicide attempts. We witness the devaluation and degradation of black men and the over-sexualization of black women. We read about the victims of colorism and the constant and insistent hold texurism has on white society. All of these discussions are handled with nuance and grace.

I was not too drawn in by the plot of romance between Ifemelu and Obinze. I found it uninteresting and rather predictable. I also found that almost all the characters sucked, one way or another. Many lacked intersectionality and could not look past their own opinions. Others were habitual cheaters who lacked empathy. I was more into the political aspect of the Americanah than anything.

If I recall correctly, there were also mentions of Asian people that appeared to uphold the “model minority myth.” This rubbed me the wrong.

Content Warnings

ruthmoog's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny reflective slow-paced

4.75

I took away a heartwarming love story of the one who got away, yet it's all the while filled with gritty realism and the flaws of humanity.
It's full of observations and discussions on race and honesty, and, living amongst a variety of cultures and places, which add depth to the storytelling and complexity to the characters' life journeys.
A great book!

Content Warnings

vas_17's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional 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

3.25

Content Warnings

seanml's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

This book says SO so many things about a myriad of different topics. Unfortunately I couldn’t even begin to address every single one. So I’ll choose 3:

1. Obviously there is somewhat of an overarching plotline, but much of the book is our protagonist(s) getting through life. Usually I don’t like books that just “follow” someone for lack of a better word, but Adichie instills such reality into every character that no person is boring because I as a reader can believe there really is more to them. I also love that there were no unrealistic “I can explain” moments, even when Adichie had ample opportunity to do so.

2. Thank you, Chimamanda for recognizing how ludicrous academic discourse can sound.

3. And lastly, I was tensed up all the way until the FINAL line. Those last chapters played with my heart TOO much!

Either way, most definitely a 8/10 at LEAST.

Content Warnings

ellenmurr16's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

Content Warnings

dm404's review against another edition

Go to review page

funny 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

5.0

Content Warnings

tachyondecay's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Unlike Half of a Yellow Sun, which is a historical novel, Americanah is a more literary offering. Adichie examines how where we live—where we grow up, where we work, where we find relationships—affects how we relate to other people. In particular, this is a book about race and Blackness as a construct of American society.

Trigger warnings in this book for anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism, suicide, infidelity, sexual harrassment.

Ifemelu and Obinze grow up together in Nigeria, each other’s first loves. She moves to the United States; he moves to England. They struggle to adapt to their new countries—or rather, their new countries try to adapt them. Ifemelu meets with more success, albeit perhaps at greater cost. She becomes, in the eyes of some of her fellow Nigerians, an eponymous Americanah: someone who adapts too well to her American setting, so that she isn’t fully Nigerian any more. Obinze has a rougher time with his immigration status, eventually returning to Nigeria years before Ifemelu finds her way back there. Adichie tells the bulk of the story in a flashback mode—we begin with Ifemelu leaving the United States for Nigeria, and then we flash back to hers and Obinze’s childhood together. We watch them grow and grow apart and see the trials they face before they are reunited. But even then, finding happiness is far from assured.

There’s a lot about this novel that isn’t my thing. The on/off romance, the relationships between the characters … this is why I usually prefer genre fiction, which offers more to its plot than a narrator telling me why a character is unhappy at this point in their life. But what makes Americanah a little more interesting, of course, is the way Adichie weaves nuances of race throughout the story.

While in the United States, Ifemelu writes a blog called Raceteenth, where she teaches non-American Blacks about life in America. In this way, Adichie creates a distinction that many non-Black Americans (or Canadians, in my case) might not think about: Black people who grew up in the United States are quite different from Black people who immigrate from elsewhere. Ifemelu points out that, until she came to the United States, she didn’t have any conception of race or of Blackness. What Adichie is doing here is gently explaining to readers this idea of racialization. Someone is racialized when their race, as determined by our society, is the minority in a given place. Consider how race versus ethnicity functions: in the United States, Ifemelu is seen as Black—she identifies more closely with other African Black people more so than African Americans—and her ethnicity as Igbo is largely irrelevant. In contrast, when she returns to Nigeria, her Blackness is entirely unremarkable, and her status as Igbo matters more.

So, I obviously can’t speak for how Black people of various origins would interpret this novel. As I white woman in Canada, I wanted to observe the way Adichie discusses race, and particularly Ifemelu’s experience of race in Nigeria. There are two white characters who caught my attention: Kimberly and Laura. Kimberly hires Ifemelu to be a babysitter/nanny for her two children. She does charity/NGO work related to Africa, and she is one portrait of a well-meaning, progressive white person: she always tries to say the right thing, try to be respectful of Ifemelu as a person—but as Ifemelu observes, she is anxious to please in this way. Laura, Kimberly’s friend, is another portrayal of a progressive white person: she’s too confident of her own wokeness, too ready to make pronouncements that Ifemelu can belie from her own experiences, offending Laura’s white fragility in the process. I like how Adichie carefully shapes these distinctive white women to show us various ways that white women treat Black women (and in particular, African women) in the United States.

This richness of the interactions of characters of various races and racializations is what makes Americanah so interesting, at least to me. There are many other examples: Ifemelu’s interactions with the other African women who work at the salon she visits; Obinze’s relationships to other Nigerians who go to England to make their fortune; Aunty Uju’s tenuous attempts to find another husband, to raise her son well in the United States. And so on. I wasn’t all that bothered by the underlying romance between Ifemelu and Obinze, but I was very happy to explore all these nuances of race.

A little long and drags a little in parts, Americanah is nevertheless thoughtful and quite successful at what it sets out to do. It showcases Adichie’s endearing talent at creating characters who move beyond the single story, as she cautions against in her TED talk. And it remains relevant in a post-Obama America, which is not a post-racial America like some hoped or pretended. As we challenge and dismantle white supremacy, it’s worth remembering that race (and in particular, Blackness) is not a universal, monolithic idea. Like any social construct, it is real, but its meanings and barriers and boundaries are fluid, and that must be taken into account.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Content Warnings

More...