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I really admired how this book balanced so many things: polemic with very human stories, Africa with America (with even some Europe thrown in), inwards and outwards criticism, humor and the addressing of serious issues... I also admire that she doesn't take the easy route to build sympathy: Obinze isn't a fleeing anything that's generally accepted as terrible when he stays in London illegally, but just a lack of options - and she makes you understand how terrible that can be, too.
But I also simp ...more
But I also simp ...more
Given the blurb on the back that calls "Americanah" a book about race and identity in the U.S., I didn't expect it to be so joyful, and was pleasantly surprised. I loved Ifemelu as a character and I loved the sometimes funny, sometimes biting observations on America and our "tribalisms." As someone who has lived, albeit for only a couple years, in a country that's very different from the U.S., I also really liked how Adichie embraced the ambiguities of homeland and diaspora, resisting the urge t
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I'm very late to the party on this - it was on my to-read list for ages and I never got to it. I think I expected it to be depressing. But it's completely engrossing - the characters feel very real, and I couldn't put it down. As Ifemelu says of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, "It's real literature, the kind of human story people will read in two hundred years." (Note to self: read more Graham Greene.) Americanah is that kind of human story.
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Jul 23, 2014
Nicole
marked it as to-read
Jan 10, 2015
Jennifer
marked it as to-read
Jan 14, 2015
Nikki
marked it as unfinished
Mar 02, 2015
Joana
marked it as to-read
Oct 08, 2015
Emily
marked it as to-read
May 18, 2016
Kate Andrews
marked it as to-read
