UPDATE: Now with irritating author interview! See end of review.Those of you who know me know I don’t really have favorite authors: I have favorite books, occasionally favorite series. So you won’t be surprised that after I thought Half of a Yellow Sun was amazing and Purple Hibiscus and The Thing Around Your Neck fairly good, I’m giving 2 stars (edit: 1 star) to Adichie’s latest. Typical. But really, yikes! This isn't even a novel: it's a 477-page opinion essay with some characters thrown in.Re...

looking for great books to read during black history month...and the other eleven months? i'm going to float some of my favorites throughout the month, and i hope they will find new readers!this is basically what was going through my head for most of the book: “AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”and then, more quietly in the background, under the shrieking:“why haven’t i read this before now?”because i was an early-adopter of adichie - i read Purple Hibiscus back when it was her only novel, and i pounced on Hal...

#BlackLivesMatter “Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.” All the praise and stars for this book. Just phenomenal. I'm at loss for words! Going on my list of favourite books of all time. This book needs to be read by everyone!

Sigh. I really wanted to be here for this novel, but damn: the two main characters - especially Ifemelu - were barely likeable after her move to America, all the other characters (especially the Americans and "nouveau riche" Nigerians) were very one-dimensional, the adjective use was next level and I felt like I was being lectured half the damn time. Adichie's prose is beautiful and she knows how to evoke emotion, but her politics - at least on the topic of race and class - feel very staid: I di...

I'm only about halfway through this book but I am enthralled. 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. But my fears were misplaced. ''Chimmy'' is back as strong as ever. I am mildly amused at how she's promoted the book in her interviews as being "about hair". This book is about race, and culture. (Admittedly, that's what it says in the blurb.) Anyway, so far, it is brilliantl...

There's a lot going on here. This book is a beautiful mess. 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. The book is, at points, indulgent, just on and on the writing goes, the writer showing off her admittedly impressive way with words. Stronger editing would have done wonders for this book. But when this book is good, it is absolutely brillian...

It's my first Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book for some reason. My only experience with Nigerian literature heretofore has been Things Fall Apart which I've read multiple times and think exquisite. I had no notion of what to expect with this book, but I do know I was hoping for an idea of a modern Nigeria. I'm also always up for cultural clashes and the dynamics of race, so this was all set to be a fantastic experience. Obviously, that didn't happen and for the most part, this book is a disappointm...

"But beyond race, the book is about the immigrant’s quest: self-invention, which is the American subject. “Americanah” is unique among the booming canon of immigrant literature of the last generation (including writers Junot Diaz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Gary Shteyngart, Chang-rae Lee, Dinaw Mengestu and Susan Choi). Its ultimate concern isn’t the challenge of becoming American or the hyphenation that requires, but the challenge of going back home."Emily Raboteau in the Washington PostI could not say it

In Nigeria, we are brought up on foreign movies, sitcoms and TV shows, foreign books and foreign news. We know how English should be spoken, and many of us who bother to read a lot are very familiar with the colloquialisms of the west.This is perhaps why we do not recognize how much we miss our own particularly Nigerian way of expression in the literature we read. It is perhaps why, when we read a phrase that is essentially Nigerian, in a novel like Americanah... “Tina-Tina, how now?” “Why are y...

"What is it with you Americans and race?" my friend Fatima asked me one day over lunch. We were in her country, France, both students at a university tucked in a shadow of an Alpine peak. "Everyone always wanted to know where I was from. I'd tell them France and they'd say, no, where are you from? It made no sense. I was born in France. I'm French." Fatima, with her brown sugar skin and currant-black eyes, then turned to her boyfriend Karim and Arabic poured from her in a river of throaty conson...

Everyone should read this book.Adichie has really hit her stride in this one. After having read and adored her previous works, I knew I would love this one, and it didn't disappoint. It is by far her best work, and you can see the progression of her writing skill in Americanah.Characters are what Adichie does best. Her books become progressively less plot-driven, but her ability to engage the reader with flawed, true characters is where she excels. Ifemelu is brazen and perhaps, to some, unlikea...

4.5 stars“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America.”If there’s anyone here in America that really doesn’t understand that racism still exists or exactly what race relations are all about, then he or she needs to sit down with Adichie for a reality check. Through the lens of two Nigeri...

I've been trying to formulate exactly what I think and how I feel about Americanah, a frustrating but fascinating read. And ultimately, I think that as a novel of ideas, concepts, exploration of how we as humans of various backgrounds understand and confront identity and immigration and race in the modern day, and a spotlight on the Nigerian and African diaspora in the US and UK, Americanah has much to recommend the reader, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's intelligent observations and smart, incis...

I thought this book was insightful, powerful, and unbelievably necessary. The way Adichie writes is so beautiful and earnest, providing an eye-opening account of modern life for those of African descent in modern America. It was LONG - probably longer than it needed to be - and a revolving door of random characters come and go, and so it feels a tad like a non-fiction commentary on race and identity padded out into a love story. However, I feel as though its length is part of the art: it's a per...