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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
This has now become one of my favorite books. Capturing grief as a young woman while having to still grow up is a hard feat and this was done perfectly. Deeply relatable and personal, I loved reading this
I might give this a 2.5? I feel like I would have liked the book a lot more but the constant googling was irritating and made me want to skip entire passages. The random passages about God and Christianity were also not my favorites, even though I kind of understand why they were included in the narrative. I wish I could have loved this book, because there were parts I really enjoyed and related to,l. However, I rushed to finish so I could put this book down and never pick it up again.
challenging
dark
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:
N/A
Maddie, also known to her family by her Twi nickname, Maame (ma-meh), which means, among other things, woman, has been saddled with the caretaking responsibilities of her aging father who is in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s. Her mother, who has been traveling back and forth to Ghana for years now, staying a year at a time, is scheduled to soon return to London. With this in mind, and under the direct encouragement of her mother, Maddie moves out for the first time into an apartment with two new flatmates.
George has written a wonderfully compassionate Bildungsroman of sorts for this twenty-five year old woman, experiencing independent life for the first time. Despite the burdens that have been placed on her over the years by her family, Maddie has remained rather innocent and younger than many her age. These later-in-young-life coming-of-age stories that have popped up over the last few years feel more in line with the idea of “coming of age” — after all someone at 13 still has a lot of years to grow compared to someone experiencing their push into adulthood at the quarter-life mark.
Maddie is thoughtful, funny, and endearingly quirky. Her inner monologue is refreshingly delivered and incredibly relatable. And while I didn’t love, on the whole, her tendency to Google search almost anything under the sun, it did serve her characterization well by reinforcing how inexperienced with life she has remained. Plus, some of those search results were downright comical.
As narrator, Maddie has a strong, developed voice, making it easy for any reader to be able to feel as though they know her well. She’s incredibly accessible with a fresh and direct voice that many novels with similar main characters never quite achieve.
On top of this sudden positive change in Maddie’s life, she is also dealing with a good amount of family issues and the contentions that can stall and damage those relationships. She has a difficult relationship with her mother and her brother, James — neither of whom have pulled their weight to care for Maddie’s father or to help with expenses. As Maddie tries to work through being on her on for the first time, she is also wrongfully terminated from her job and has to quickly find a new job to support her new life.
There is so much vulnerable earnestness George has written into Maddie — it’s easy to care about her and the journey she must take in this emotionally powerful debut novel.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
George has written a wonderfully compassionate Bildungsroman of sorts for this twenty-five year old woman, experiencing independent life for the first time. Despite the burdens that have been placed on her over the years by her family, Maddie has remained rather innocent and younger than many her age. These later-in-young-life coming-of-age stories that have popped up over the last few years feel more in line with the idea of “coming of age” — after all someone at 13 still has a lot of years to grow compared to someone experiencing their push into adulthood at the quarter-life mark.
Maddie is thoughtful, funny, and endearingly quirky. Her inner monologue is refreshingly delivered and incredibly relatable. And while I didn’t love, on the whole, her tendency to Google search almost anything under the sun, it did serve her characterization well by reinforcing how inexperienced with life she has remained. Plus, some of those search results were downright comical.
As narrator, Maddie has a strong, developed voice, making it easy for any reader to be able to feel as though they know her well. She’s incredibly accessible with a fresh and direct voice that many novels with similar main characters never quite achieve.
On top of this sudden positive change in Maddie’s life, she is also dealing with a good amount of family issues and the contentions that can stall and damage those relationships. She has a difficult relationship with her mother and her brother, James — neither of whom have pulled their weight to care for Maddie’s father or to help with expenses. As Maddie tries to work through being on her on for the first time, she is also wrongfully terminated from her job and has to quickly find a new job to support her new life.
There is so much vulnerable earnestness George has written into Maddie — it’s easy to care about her and the journey she must take in this emotionally powerful debut novel.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
emotional
funny
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:
Complicated
This as an audiobook was INCREDIBLE! This book has altered my brain chemistry. This story of Maddie sort of coming of age as a new adult dealing with friends, family, grief, work stress, life plans. This is in first person so you are completely immeshed into her continuous stream of consciousness with her texts, google searches and intrusive thoughts happening seamlessly in the story. She references Lizzie McGuires little cartoon character as her conscious talking to her and that’s what I felt like she was doing before she pointed it out explicitly in the book. The main character REALLY resonated with me. You MUST LISTEN to the audiobook if you can. If not this book is still easy to love in any form.
Maame is the coming-of-age story of Maddie, a young woman living in London, devoted to her family, but she’s held back from achieving her potential. It’s a slow-moving but heartfelt novel. It thoughtfully covers many themes like race, gender, grief, love and mental health. Bravo to debut author Jessica George.
Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the advanced copy!
Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the advanced copy!
Maame is a beautifully unique and powerful coming-of-age story. Nicknamed Maame (which means "woman," "responsible" in Twi) by her Ghanaian family, Maddie was simultaneously forced to group up too soon and a late bloomer. Now in her mid-twenties, living in London and feeling stuck and overburdened in life, she is questioning who she is and who she is meant to be.
Maame is about relationships, the ties that bind us to family and friends, grief and love. I loved the format of Maddie's POV, she has an amazing narrative voice that drew me in, sprinkled with emails and her all-too-innocent-for-her-age Google searches.
Ordinarily, I strongly dislike books with heavy topics and sad plots. I just don't like to feel overwhelmingly sad or have my heart broken watching a protagonist go through the wringer. However, Maame is the exception to my rule. Jessica George artfully and adeptly weaves a tale of illness, loss, grief, loneliness, depression, racism and even the "bread and butter" life challenges such as career, love and friendship struggles. Yes, this is quite the list of heavy topics...and yet, I loved this book. There is truly something special about Maddie, she's one of the best characters I've ever read. I couldn't help but love and root for her.
George's writing is exceptional. Mid-story I realized that although I was reading quickly (because I was so enthralled), I still absorbed and felt the power of every single word. The books that have accomplished this are few and far between for me.
I highly recommend this book!
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC. Maame will be out this Tuesday, January 31!
Maame is about relationships, the ties that bind us to family and friends, grief and love. I loved the format of Maddie's POV, she has an amazing narrative voice that drew me in, sprinkled with emails and her all-too-innocent-for-her-age Google searches.
Ordinarily, I strongly dislike books with heavy topics and sad plots. I just don't like to feel overwhelmingly sad or have my heart broken watching a protagonist go through the wringer. However, Maame is the exception to my rule. Jessica George artfully and adeptly weaves a tale of illness, loss, grief, loneliness, depression, racism and even the "bread and butter" life challenges such as career, love and friendship struggles. Yes, this is quite the list of heavy topics...and yet, I loved this book. There is truly something special about Maddie, she's one of the best characters I've ever read. I couldn't help but love and root for her.
George's writing is exceptional. Mid-story I realized that although I was reading quickly (because I was so enthralled), I still absorbed and felt the power of every single word. The books that have accomplished this are few and far between for me.
I highly recommend this book!
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC. Maame will be out this Tuesday, January 31!
At 25, Maddie struggles to navigate adult life when all her friends seem to have everything figured out. Her mother spends most of her time in Ghana; her brother is pursuing a music career and is barely present, while Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from Parkinson's. When her mom finally returns to London, Maddie leaps to start "living" finally. She moves into an apartment with roommates, says yes to smoking and drinking, and starts online dating. But when tragedy strikes, Maddie is forced to face her unconventional family, her loneliness, and her messy love life.
Labeled as a coming-of-age story, I didn't expect to ugly-cry while reading this book, and I loved every moment of it. MAAME encompasses the messiness of the mid-20s perfectly with Maddie, a self-deprecating and introverted protagonist. Her struggles with loneliness, friendship, dating, sex, and starting a career are all topics I related to profoundly and wished I'd known when I was younger. I especially appreciated the discussions on sex in MAAME and how George paints a realistic picture of what young women face in modern-day dating, particularly the microaggressions young women of color could encounter when dating white men.
One of the most poignant aspects of MAAME is the relationship between Maddie and her father; both are reserved and tend to bottle their emotions inside. As a result, they lost valuable time communicating with each other. It's a heartbreaking reminder of how we can sometimes let our relationships suffer due to our own struggles. It's a rite of passage for every child to realize that their parents aren't perfect, and MAAME does an excellent job of capturing this moment of realization for Maddie.
There's so much to love in MAAME, and this will likely be my top read of the year. This beautifully written and emotional coming-of-age story will resonate with readers of all ages and make you lol & sob at the same time. For those in their 20s, it's a valuable book to know that they're not alone; for readers who have passed this stage (like me ✌️), MAAME made me realize how far I've come and could go.
Labeled as a coming-of-age story, I didn't expect to ugly-cry while reading this book, and I loved every moment of it. MAAME encompasses the messiness of the mid-20s perfectly with Maddie, a self-deprecating and introverted protagonist. Her struggles with loneliness, friendship, dating, sex, and starting a career are all topics I related to profoundly and wished I'd known when I was younger. I especially appreciated the discussions on sex in MAAME and how George paints a realistic picture of what young women face in modern-day dating, particularly the microaggressions young women of color could encounter when dating white men.
One of the most poignant aspects of MAAME is the relationship between Maddie and her father; both are reserved and tend to bottle their emotions inside. As a result, they lost valuable time communicating with each other. It's a heartbreaking reminder of how we can sometimes let our relationships suffer due to our own struggles. It's a rite of passage for every child to realize that their parents aren't perfect, and MAAME does an excellent job of capturing this moment of realization for Maddie.
There's so much to love in MAAME, and this will likely be my top read of the year. This beautifully written and emotional coming-of-age story will resonate with readers of all ages and make you lol & sob at the same time. For those in their 20s, it's a valuable book to know that they're not alone; for readers who have passed this stage (like me ✌️), MAAME made me realize how far I've come and could go.
emotional
funny
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
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes