Review: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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- kitfox32
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Review: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
As a realistic litfic novel that details the lives of ordinary people, this is a wonderful book. The writing is well-crafted, the characters interesting, and the stories compelling. However, the novel is missing a spark of something--what my creative writing teacher would call the "So-what." The commentaries on race, immigration, and society in the US, the UK, and Nigeria, are well-observed and trenchant, but one wonders whether these analyses might not be better served as part of a sociological blog, like the one Ifemelu writes on race relations in the novel. Ifemelu's trauma would be significant in real life, but as an inciting incident for the major dramatic conflict of the novel, it is not given its due in the book. Perhaps the author, like Ifemelu herself, is unsure whether it warrants Ifemelu's response; I think it should, but for that response to be convincing, the author needs to be convinced of its merit herself.
This is an important and a beautiful book, well worth reading, but if you're looking for drama or even a plot that pulls you in, this isn't the book for you.
- suzanneseidel
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- Vivian Paschal
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