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A review by futurama1979
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4.0
⟶ 4.5/5 stars
This book genuinely wowed me. Adichie took themes as varying and love and relationships, identity and politics, convergence and contrast, and home, weaving them together masterfully, painfully, and realistically in these five hundred odd pages. And the reason these all fit together is that they are all contained in one experience for these two characters - they seem maybe disparate themes, but they aren't. They are the immigrant experience, perfectly encapsulated. The book is well tied together and everything fits perfectly.
And talk about a gripping narrative! It is on the longer side for its genre, there's no denying that, and there wasn't a single time for me that it felt like I was trudging through it. The flow and narrative were so well handled it seemed like I was just blowing through pages. Really interest-holding the entire way through; not a single moment where I wished Adichie had cut down on length.
I've thought a lot about this book as a traditional hero's journey plot after a discussion about it with one of my classmates and, really, this mapping of it tracks. Thinking about it this way made me realize that the home Ifem has to return to and then work to settle into again is not Lagos, but Obinze. Their love story, while not the constant focus of the novel, is definitely a driving force of it, and how magnificent it is. We all want to be completely understood and accepted and adored, and for Ifem and Obinze they were meant to have this with each other. And their love story is what really reached me the most- the level of connection they had, and familiarity, and puzzle-piece-ness is so beautiful I just couldn't wait to find out what happened to them and if they would get back together.
All in all a gorgeous novel that was at once day-in-the-life and extraordinary. Don't let the page count scare you!
This book genuinely wowed me. Adichie took themes as varying and love and relationships, identity and politics, convergence and contrast, and home, weaving them together masterfully, painfully, and realistically in these five hundred odd pages. And the reason these all fit together is that they are all contained in one experience for these two characters - they seem maybe disparate themes, but they aren't. They are the immigrant experience, perfectly encapsulated. The book is well tied together and everything fits perfectly.
And talk about a gripping narrative! It is on the longer side for its genre, there's no denying that, and there wasn't a single time for me that it felt like I was trudging through it. The flow and narrative were so well handled it seemed like I was just blowing through pages. Really interest-holding the entire way through; not a single moment where I wished Adichie had cut down on length.
I've thought a lot about this book as a traditional hero's journey plot after a discussion about it with one of my classmates and, really, this mapping of it tracks. Thinking about it this way made me realize that the home Ifem has to return to and then work to settle into again is not Lagos, but Obinze. Their love story, while not the constant focus of the novel, is definitely a driving force of it, and how magnificent it is. We all want to be completely understood and accepted and adored, and for Ifem and Obinze they were meant to have this with each other. And their love story is what really reached me the most- the level of connection they had, and familiarity, and puzzle-piece-ness is so beautiful I just couldn't wait to find out what happened to them and if they would get back together.
All in all a gorgeous novel that was at once day-in-the-life and extraordinary. Don't let the page count scare you!