EricaO

I wanted to read this after hearing Adichie's interview on NPR. Her voice, oh my gosh. Dreamy!
But, mostly, I was struck when she said that she had to learn to be black when she came to America because, like her character Ifemelu mentions, she wasn't black in Nigeria. And I was all...Oh! Duh! Right! I get that! and it was like a moment of enlightenment because, when you break it down, I am a racist little shit based solely on ignorance and lack of compassion. So I really wanted to read this, hoping this women who had to learn about race in America could teach me something about it, too, because I'm pathetically behind in my education on this topic. Also? I lived abroad for a year in a homogenous culture where I was the weird foreigner. AND Ifemelu is a famous blogger in the story. I have a blog! It's like we're twins. I wanted to read about her trials and adventures so I could do a compare-and-contrast with my own.

I'll put my thoughts about the book up after I re-find my notes. There are some things I really liked in this story and some I really didn't and I don't want to mess them up by trying to remember it all without the aid of my brilliant little squiggles that I hurriedly scratched out while I was reading.

Notes have been found and now I will finish this review.

The main obstacle to my reading enjoyment was that the story was beautiful, melodic, and intriguing and then would suddenly, without reason, go clunky and jangly. It's not like the clunky, jangly bits happened at clunky, jangly moments, they would just appear and then just as suddenly disappear, returning to the beautiful, intriguing writing. I kept getting kicked out of the story on account.
I also found myself confused as to what was being said with too much regularity. For instance, sentence structure such as

She began to imagine a relationship.

His nails were clean. He was not wearing a wedding band.

Both of them waking up in the winter, cuddling in the stark whiteness of the morning light, drinking English Breakfast tea; she hoped he was one of those Americans who liked tea. His juice, the bottle stuffed in the pouch in front of him...
Wait, what? The dude with no wedding band, ergo available to have a romantic relationship, was going to drink tea with her on cozy winter mornings and now there's juice? In a pouch? What's happening?
Yes, I read it again until it cleared up and I understood, but this kept happening to me and it made me feel like I don't understand words and I hate feeling like that.
I think that parts that really put me off, though, were the blog posts. I wanted powerful, interesting, thought-provoking posts, things that would really make me think. In real life, I read blog posts to laugh, to learn, or to test and grow my ability to comprehend the world. These imaginary blog posts were unremarkable, for the most part, and they started out only in snippets until Ch. 17 when all of a sudden there's an entire post and then more show up later. I didn't understand that, either - why just snippets that weren't really relevant to the story and then entire posts? Why?
I didn't follow or even comprehend the transformation from mature, self-possessed young adult in Africa to scatterbrained, flaky, boy-centered young adult in America. Is this because America ruins everything with our self-centered, self-indulgent, blameless, Capitalist ways? America is the corruptor of innocence, goodness, and personal accountability?
And just as I was getting irritated with Ifem's regression, Obinze shows up with his own chapter, throwing me out of the story yet again.

I actually wound up enjoying Obinze's story more, even if he did turn out to be a spineless drip. His tale still rang true to me whereas Ifemelu never felt right as a character. Despite the ex-pat theme, despite the having to go abroad to really grow up thing, depsite the blog posts, I never connected to her or her story at all.

While I am glad I read this and while I fully enjoyed a good half of the book, I was too frustrated by the end to give it more than 3 stars.