Make the point, yes, but enough is enough. He has also seen friends from home in decidedly elevated circumstances: Emenike, who has married a wealthy lawyer and subsequently "cast home as the jungle and himself as interpreter of the jungle", invites him to a dinner party in Islington, at which Obinze is struck by the unmatched artisan plates that would never be used for guests in Nigeria. I was afraid that I was over-eager and could only be disappointed, that I had set the bar too high, that I should remember that Adichie is only human, after all. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. I enjoyed Adichie's novel Purple Hibiscus, but this book was a slog, for multiple reasons. It is also about race, gender and the nature of home. To see what your friends thought of this book, Laura, you know you don't really want an answer to your very rude question. After 13 years in the United States, Ifemelu is about to return to Lagos; but first she must go to the hairdresser's. But it failed to fully make me empathise with them, probably due to their personalities. We are all only human. Before long, Ifemelu joins her on a scholarship, with Obinze promising to follow within a few years. She never grows as a character. ", Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's accomplished third novel is a subtly provocative exploration of oppression and the idea of home, Animating the questions … Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. But I also struggled with the characters a bit and with believing that those blogs could go viral so easily. As for the plot, in itself it was just okay. But it’s a lie. I did so because of Colonization and Western economic policy that was enforced in Latin America which ruined our political system. What I mean by that is that I wanted more, let’s call it, ‘epicness’. Well, that was my take on it, which was close to yours. Rating: 3 Stars. The tension between these two characters has simmered for some time, and this is an explosive moment. The food is served on self-consciously "ethnic" plates brought back from a holiday in India and Obinze is left wondering whether Emenike has become a person "who believed that something was beautiful because it was handmade by poor people in a foreign country, or whether he had simply learned to pretend so". In America, Ifemelu also finds it difficult to get part-time work. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. In posts such as Badly Dressed White Middle Managers From Ohio Are Not Always What You Think, about a man who has adopted a black child and finds himself shunned by his neighbours, she chronicles her unexpected discoveries; in more didactic mode, she counsels her fellow immigrants in unabashedly straightforward, no-nonsense terms. First, she must take a train out of Princeton, where the few black people she has seen are "so light-skinned and lank-haired she could not imagine them wearing braids", then she must take a cab to an unfamiliar salon, her usual hairdresser being unavailable because she has returned to Ivory Coast to get married; then wrangle over the price; then sit in baking heat for many hours, during which she will be asked repeatedly whether she knows the Nollywood stars on the television and, more alarmingly, whether she can intercede on her Senegalese braider Aisha's behalf to persuade either of her Igbo suitors to marry her. Adichie is particularly good at exposing the contradictory ebb and flow of America's painful attempts to reconcile itself with its recent past, when segregation still persisted in the south. I loved this book; even though it was long and essentially a romance, but there was so much more to it. "Because she's African. Nonetheless, this is an impressive novel – although very different from Adichie's Orange prize-winning Half of a Yellow Sun, it shares some of its freewheeling, zesty expansiveness. All I can say is: sorta, but also not sorta. That seems harsh, but the little we got was not enough for me. If the word woke had to embody something, it would become this book. She has an extraordinary eye for the telling nuance of social interaction within a particular kind of liberal elite. I remember shaking my head in disbelief at the repeated blogging success too! I, like any self-respecting bookworm, am a big fan of a bookstore. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. I don’t like reading about cheating, and that is personal preference, I’ll admit. Similarly, some characters are glimpsed too fleetingly to make a lasting impression; in the case of Ifemelu's parents, for example, this neatly mirrors their daughter's fading memories of them, but it is also tricky for the reader. It’s a bummer when you don’t love a book the way you’re sure you’re going to. my friend Fatima asked me one day over lunch. "Everyone always wanted to know where I was. Welcome back. And I understand that feeling of preferring something not even be included at all if it wasn’t going to get the amount of attention it should’ve. But when this book is good, it is absolutely brilliant. Also, as much as I am all for blogs becoming famous and going viral, what are the odds that two blogs one person starts, despite them being complete separated from each other and written under different names, both go viral without the hard blogger-work related efforts being put in? Ifemelu's ideas of America are shiny, glossed by television shows and advertising: "She saw herself in a house from The Cosby Show, in a school with students holding notebooks miraculously free of wear and crease." Ifemelu comes off very angry, again, very much like the author in real life (I’ve seen a few interviews with her). Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? It was indeed true that because of a male, your stomach could tighten up and refuse to unknot itself, your body's joints could unhinge, your limbs fail to move to music, and all effortless things suddenly become leaden.". *Thank you to Lekeisha @ lbooknerd for gifting this one to me! Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland. I'm only about halfway through this book but I am enthralled. Are you sure you want to delete this comment? . There are some novels that tell a great story and others that make you change the way you look at the world. Obinze and Ifemelu fall in love as teenagers in late-1980s Nigeria, amid ongoing strikes and nationwide discontent that makes studying nigh on impossible: "Campuses were emptied, classrooms drained of life. So far, so run-of-the-mill, for who doesn't want to look their best to greet a crowd of people they haven't seen for a long time? She had a very straightforward, clear cut way of thinking. It is to Adichie's immense credit that such a sprawling, epic book remains so tightly structured. With Lupita Nyong'o, Tireni Oyenusi, Uzo Aduba, Corey Hawkins. Amazing review, Olivia! The whole relatable thing continues right through the novel. Photograph: Richard Saker. February Wrap Up! Too bad you didn’t love it as much as you’d thought. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. There are several reasons for this but the one that had the most impact was the sense that the writer wasn't sure what type of novel this should be. Stronger editing would have done wonders for this book. Her blog, Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known As Negroes) by a Non- American Black, created so that  she could voice her various puzzlements and conclusions about what she saw around her, has become a huge success, managing to keep happy both the kind of readers who routinely use the word "reify" and those who want to chat in more laidback fashion about their experiences. And the ending/romance storyline between Obinze and Ifemelu... fail. I am not a professional in fitness or health. Adichie is a wonderful writer and she can churn out a great book without really trying. I can stomach it much better if there is some kind of grounding or reasoning behind it, or if it is shown to be frowned on in the novel at least, by the end of it. Great review! Her fellow students speak to her with painful slowness, as if she cannot comprehend basic English. The observations are keen and I don't disagree with their general message, but the delivery is smug and repetitive, an endless series of cocktail and dinner party scenes where the narrat. I also did not like how love and relationships were handled in this book. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? So cleverly included and so, so relatable. I think I’m scared of the length. It’s true. Oh did I just say that out loud??. Adichie takes on race, immigration and emigration, the politics of natural hair, interracial relationships, what it means to leave home, and what it means to return, all wrapped up in a love story. We rely on readers like you to uphold a free press. (Not really a spoiler, because there are too many relationships for this to be focused on one.) American life is not as it appears on television, discovers the Nigerian heroine of this unendingly perceptive culture-clash love story, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile, When, in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's new novel Americanah, Obinze and Ifemelu fall in love, they fall hard and fast. As much as we study history and throw around terminology like ‘The American Dream’ as if it is an idea of the past, it truly isn’t. The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Premium. I didn’t like her character, or Obinze character. Adichie captures the tone of internet chatter with precision – at once both breezy and sporadically furious – and the blogposts add an extra dimension to the plot, allowing the reader to see how Ifemelu sees herself and how she wishes to present herself to the outside world. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Stronger editing would have done wonders for this book. There's a lot going on here. "They would not understand why people like him, who were raised well-fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else… were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty.".