A review by mtstellens
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

4.0

Ada is a young Nigerian woman who is born split between worlds, she is a human with gods inside her, gods that often use her body for their own whims. An incredibly dark story about identity and mental illness. Ada begins to self harm to appease the gods after she sees the death of her sibling and then being sent to the US away from her family for education. She dissociates after being raped by her partner, she allows this altar to front drink/ have sex. She has another altar that is a male (St. Vincent) who she keeps very much a secret. The altars both protect her from trauma and stop her from getting help. Eventually they are able to be in a better place, having tattoos to serve as remembrances of what they have gone through and chest surgery to feel more comfortable in their body before passing away. Another one that has a lot of content warnings. It reminds me a bit of 'A Little Life,' it is dark throughout the book and attempts to illustrate how trauma can compound, I definitely think it is better written than 'A Little Life' and tackles it's subject matter in more interesting and nuanced ways. It is another book that can feel very dreamlike, it can be hard to get into or understand at first, and the moments that pierce through the dream are incredibly dark. We are held in Ada's mind for the most part, so we don't know much about what she is doing in her day to day or how she is living, yet we know this character on such a deep personal level, it makes for a very interesting contrast.