Americanah
As seen:
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
avg rating
3 reviews
‘A delicious, important novel’ The Times
‘Alert, alive and gripping’ Independent ‘Some novels tell a great story and others make you change the way you look at the world. Americanah does both’ Guardian As teenagers in Lagos, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America. There she suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Thirteen years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a blogger. But after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face? Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous lives, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning ‘Americanah’ is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today’s globalized world. TweetReviews
A fantastic fiction book, set across three continents and multiple decades in the lives of Ifemelu and Obinze. The book sharply observes race, cultural differences and relationships. Every character is treated with dignity, and the story helps to highlight immigrant experiences.
Personally, I would recommend to an older reading age, above 18+. Although sections of the book flash-back to address Ifemelu and Obinze's teenage years, the story is narrated with a confidence that the characters have gained through maturity. It feels more relatable to an audience in their 20s/30s.
Great story, we scored it 8/10
Extremely well written. This story about two people that lost love and took different paths in life, finding themselves back in contact after 15 years was truly captivating. I'm not a fan of romance novels but I enjoyed reading this.
It was a lot more conservative than Chimamanda's other works, a lot less visually descriptive but the story flowed and I got to like some of the characters and see my self and my friends in some of them.
This book would appeal to a wider audience than Half of A Yellow Sun. It's less dramatic, with less Igbo words and traditional stories. I'd recommend it to everyone nonetheless.
