Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[clementine]

A lot of the issues people seem to have with this book didn't apply to me. I like that much of it was vignette style. I'm actually surprised by how many people said it lagged for them, because I devoured all 577 pages in under 48 hours. I liked that there were a lot of characters introduced and then never really heard from again; to me, it was realistic, speaking to the transience of the lives Obinze and Ifemelu were creating for themselves.

I loved the characters and I loved the writing. Both Obinze and Ifemelu were so incredibly well-developed and seemed real to me. As you know if you read my reviews, characterization usually trumps all for me when it comes to the enjoyment of a book, and the characterization was superb here. Both main characters had flaws and things that complicated them, but both were likeable. I felt like I knew them very well.

I had two main issues with the book. The first was the blog posts. I did like the posts themselves, but did not feel that they were integrated seamlessly. Their inclusion was always a bit jarring, especially because they only started appearing quite a ways into the book. I felt that they were, perhaps, a bit too obvious. The book is very clearly political anyway, and I don't think it needed to be so explicit with the blog posts. They just weren't well-integrated, like Adichie wanted to include miniature essays on race but didn't quite know how to drop them in. That said, I did like the idea of Ifemelu as a prominent race blogger - that in itself wasn't the problem, it was the (lack of) integration of the posts themselves.

And then there was the ending. I didn't hate it, but I felt like I had been tricked, like I thought I was reading a book about immigration and identity and race only to be told in the last few pages that the entire time it was actually a romance novel. It was all just a bit too neat, and it surprised me that this was the climax, that the book was building towards Ifemelu and Obinze getting back together. Maybe I was just reading it differently from how it was intended, but the romantic aspects weren't what I found compelling. I was so drawn in by the story for about 95% of the book, following Ifemelu and Obinze's lives and trials. It was just the very end that I found a bit disappointing.

Regardless, I don't think that the ending was terrible, as I said. I felt a tiny bit ripped off, but I enjoyed the rest of the book too much for it to be ruined. This is definitely one that I will revisit - not before I read more of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's other work, of course.