A review by purplehulk713
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • 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

4.5

This novel was real. Adichie is a master of weaving the complexity of personality, especially when it comes to character flaws. You feel for her characters and suffer with them. Ifemelu is powerful but depressed, assured but insecure. Her situation in America precludes her from her true behavior because of the many racial constructs, like how she relaxes her hair for the longest time but it ends up physically burning her scalp until the point that she realizes that it is so much wiser to let her hair grow naturally. It’s an excellent parallel to her growth as a character and the novel’s theme of sincerity—initially Ifemelu tries very hard to assimilate for advantage in American society, trying to adopt an accent and lying about how long she has lived there. She learns that being genuine is a privilege in American society, not a given. My interest in the novel rather waned in the last one hundred pages perhaps because the novel is quite long or because I thought  Ifemelu’s homecoming and reintroduction to Nigeria wasn’t as interesting as Adichie’s exploration of race in America from an outsider’s perspective. But I was quite satisfied with the ending, which brought everything full circle and showed the protagonists the benefits of a genuine relationship. This novel asks us to embrace the truth of ourselves but with a depth and subtlety greater than that of a novel for children.
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