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xio's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Moderate: Racism, Death, and Sexual assault
Minor: Abortion
alicelalicon's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Deportation, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Racism, Infidelity, Violence, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: War, Death, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Body shaming, and Fatphobia
vas_17's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Deportation, Racial slurs, Cultural appropriation, Body shaming, Bullying, Classism, Cursing, Death of parent, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, and Emotional abuse
kathis_wonderland's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I wanted to read this book for a very long time. And now I am not fully sure what to think about it. In general, I liked the book. It felt very authentic and gave me a new insight into Africans’ experiencing racism in the US and Europe. It really broadened my horizon. The plot was very diverse. We heard about race and racism, about everyday racism, normal life, struggles, love and relationships.
However, the story was very long. Some scenes were not interesting at all and seemed to make the story longer. I was very confused at the beginning of the book. The author was jumping around within the plot, talking about the present and then jumping back to the past, writing several chapters about Ifemelu's youth and then suddenly jumping back to the present again. This confused me a lot in the beginning. Therefore, it took me ages to get into the story and to start liking it. I found Ifemelu's actions often questionable. She was cheating on her boyfriends a lot. And if there is one trope I don't like in books, it is cheating!
In the end, I started to like the book more and more. We got different perspectives and read about lots of different experiences. The love between Ifemelu and Obinze was really nice. I expected something different from the book, but in the end was pleased. I can recommend it!
Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, Racism, Deportation, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Chronic illness, Racial slurs, Classism, and Grief
Minor: Alcohol, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Colonisation, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Cultural appropriation, Adult/minor relationship, and Slavery
nicole_schmid's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Graphic: Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual harassment and Suicide attempt
Minor: Classism, Death, Racism, and Sexual content
veganecurrywurst's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Infidelity, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, and Sexual content
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Grief, Hate crime, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment
caitlingrammer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Moderate: Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Death, Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and War
seanml's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
1. Obviously there is somewhat of an overarching plotline, but much of the book is our protagonist(s) getting through life. Usually I don’t like books that just “follow” someone for lack of a better word, but Adichie instills such reality into every character that no person is boring because I as a reader can believe there really is more to them. I also love that there were no unrealistic “I can explain” moments, even when Adichie had ample opportunity to do so.
2. Thank you, Chimamanda for recognizing how ludicrous academic discourse can sound.
3. And lastly, I was tensed up all the way until the FINAL line. Those last chapters played with my heart TOO much!
Either way, most definitely a 8/10 at LEAST.
Graphic: Drug abuse and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Cultural appropriation, Cursing, Death of parent, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Racism, and Sexual content
Minor: Alcohol, Bullying, Death, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Hate crime, and Sexism
the_literarylinguist's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Moderate: Mental illness, Racism, Sexual assault, and Suicide
Minor: Rape, Infidelity, Death, Cancer, and Body shaming
tachyondecay's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Unlike Half of a Yellow Sun, which is a historical novel, Americanah is a more literary offering. Adichie examines how where we live—where we grow up, where we work, where we find relationships—affects how we relate to other people. In particular, this is a book about race and Blackness as a construct of American society.
Trigger warnings in this book for anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism, suicide, infidelity, sexual harrassment.
Ifemelu and Obinze grow up together in Nigeria, each other’s first loves. She moves to the United States; he moves to England. They struggle to adapt to their new countries—or rather, their new countries try to adapt them. Ifemelu meets with more success, albeit perhaps at greater cost. She becomes, in the eyes of some of her fellow Nigerians, an eponymous Americanah: someone who adapts too well to her American setting, so that she isn’t fully Nigerian any more. Obinze has a rougher time with his immigration status, eventually returning to Nigeria years before Ifemelu finds her way back there. Adichie tells the bulk of the story in a flashback mode—we begin with Ifemelu leaving the United States for Nigeria, and then we flash back to hers and Obinze’s childhood together. We watch them grow and grow apart and see the trials they face before they are reunited. But even then, finding happiness is far from assured.
There’s a lot about this novel that isn’t my thing. The on/off romance, the relationships between the characters … this is why I usually prefer genre fiction, which offers more to its plot than a narrator telling me why a character is unhappy at this point in their life. But what makes Americanah a little more interesting, of course, is the way Adichie weaves nuances of race throughout the story.
While in the United States, Ifemelu writes a blog called Raceteenth, where she teaches non-American Blacks about life in America. In this way, Adichie creates a distinction that many non-Black Americans (or Canadians, in my case) might not think about: Black people who grew up in the United States are quite different from Black people who immigrate from elsewhere. Ifemelu points out that, until she came to the United States, she didn’t have any conception of race or of Blackness. What Adichie is doing here is gently explaining to readers this idea of racialization. Someone is racialized when their race, as determined by our society, is the minority in a given place. Consider how race versus ethnicity functions: in the United States, Ifemelu is seen as Black—she identifies more closely with other African Black people more so than African Americans—and her ethnicity as Igbo is largely irrelevant. In contrast, when she returns to Nigeria, her Blackness is entirely unremarkable, and her status as Igbo matters more.
So, I obviously can’t speak for how Black people of various origins would interpret this novel. As I white woman in Canada, I wanted to observe the way Adichie discusses race, and particularly Ifemelu’s experience of race in Nigeria. There are two white characters who caught my attention: Kimberly and Laura. Kimberly hires Ifemelu to be a babysitter/nanny for her two children. She does charity/NGO work related to Africa, and she is one portrait of a well-meaning, progressive white person: she always tries to say the right thing, try to be respectful of Ifemelu as a person—but as Ifemelu observes, she is anxious to please in this way. Laura, Kimberly’s friend, is another portrayal of a progressive white person: she’s too confident of her own wokeness, too ready to make pronouncements that Ifemelu can belie from her own experiences, offending Laura’s white fragility in the process. I like how Adichie carefully shapes these distinctive white women to show us various ways that white women treat Black women (and in particular, African women) in the United States.
This richness of the interactions of characters of various races and racializations is what makes Americanah so interesting, at least to me. There are many other examples: Ifemelu’s interactions with the other African women who work at the salon she visits; Obinze’s relationships to other Nigerians who go to England to make their fortune; Aunty Uju’s tenuous attempts to find another husband, to raise her son well in the United States. And so on. I wasn’t all that bothered by the underlying romance between Ifemelu and Obinze, but I was very happy to explore all these nuances of race.
A little long and drags a little in parts, Americanah is nevertheless thoughtful and quite successful at what it sets out to do. It showcases Adichie’s endearing talent at creating characters who move beyond the single story, as she cautions against in her TED talk. And it remains relevant in a post-Obama America, which is not a post-racial America like some hoped or pretended. As we challenge and dismantle white supremacy, it’s worth remembering that race (and in particular, Blackness) is not a universal, monolithic idea. Like any social construct, it is real, but its meanings and barriers and boundaries are fluid, and that must be taken into account.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Graphic: Sexual content, Sexism, Racism, Mental illness, and Infidelity
Moderate: Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Suicide, and Sexual assault
Minor: Antisemitism, Death, and Islamophobia