Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Americanah

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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

31 reviews

hot_water's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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

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seanml's review against another edition

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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.

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liblady0308's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense 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

5.0

This book will stay with me for a long time. It was really eye-opening, beautifully written, with poignant observations of the world and love.

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mariverse's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative 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? It's complicated

5.0

I loved loved loved this book. The way Adichie deals with racial issues, broken immigration systems, and misogynoir is highly commendable. She explores all of these topics with nuance and shows the wide range of experiences immigrants of colour have, both in the US and the UK. This book explains and deconstructs the American dream, which is one of my favourite aspects of it.

The characters and plot are also amazing. I loved the romances, the heartbreaks, and the unique struggles of both main characters. Adichie's writing style is so lovely, as well. Her rhythm is so distinct, her control of her prose so careful, and her use of language always purposeful. A spectacular read through and through; both in terms of plot/characters/etc and its discussion of social/political issues.

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katherinemonroe's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.75

This was a great read, though perhaps a bit slow to get through. I was assigned this book for summer reading, but I’m definitely glad to have read it. Adichie’s writing is honest and simple without being plain (i.e. not overly pretentious). It’s very readable and well-written, with plenty of astute observations regarding race, class, gender, and love in both America and Nigeria. The main character, Ifemelu, is a self-assured young Nigerian woman from a working class family who comes to the United States to study. She is likable, compelling, realistic, and relatable. Although the novel touches on many relavent social issues, I would categorize it mainly as realistic contemporary fiction. The plot follows Ifemelu (and her former boyfriend, Obinze,) in her experiences in America, her romantic relationships, friendships, family relationships, studies, and day-to-day experiences. Overall, I think it’s a book that everyone should read. My only complaint would be that the ending (though it is a satisfying, albeit a little predictable conclusion) felt a little less nuanced than the rest of the book.

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daddybeans's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

This book is a very sensory experience, everywhere they go is filled with sights and sounds and smells that just seem to envelop the reader in a warm hug. Even if you don't call Nigeria your home the author does an excellent job of making it feel like a homey place. The main character is a woman written by a woman and she's so uniquely portrayed and interesting that I couldn't help but fall in love with her myself.

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lily1304's review against another edition

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reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

Disclaimer that the author is transphobic, and publicly defends JK Rowling's transphobia from "cancel culture". I don't know the exact details of the dispute between Adichie and Akwaeke Emezi (a nonbinary Nigerian author, Adichie's former student), but I side with Emezi. More context here: https://time.com/6076606/chimamanda-adichie-akwaeke-emezi-trans-rights-essay/

All that said, I'm a big believer in reading works by flawed authors, and allowing what I know about the author to inform how I read and think about their work.

Americanah definitely felt different on the second reading. I'm not sure how I felt about it in 2016, but this time the mood of the whole book was dissatisfaction and resignation. There is endless description of things Ifemelu and Obinze find ignorant or hypocritical about Nigeria, the United States, England, white people, Black Americans, other Nigerians, etc. All romantic relationships are one-sided or tense or fake unless one or both partners are married to someone else. Ifemelu is a weird main character because she constantly has this feeling of alienation, like every interaction she has with another person is stilted and overanalyzed. I liked the friendship between Ifemelu and her cousin Dike, but even that relationship is full of things unsaid.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Americanah is bad, I think a lot of that must be Adichie's intent. But I finished the book feeling like, what's the payoff? There are moments of levity, and there are aspects of Obinze and Ifemelu's relationship that I appreciate, but overall I found myself frustrated with them both. I'm glad I read it, but I doubt I'll read it again.

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debookgeek's review

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring 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

4.0

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kelly_schertle's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

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tachyondecay's review against another edition

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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.

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