In this post: Read this thought provoking love story focused on Blackness from a Nigerian-immigrant experience.
Category: Fiction
Happy Hallo-weekend! This is not a very spooky review, sadly, but I do have a new series for you all! Wooo-ooo (spooky ghost voice).
Introducing, Fast Fiction - your quick dose of other reading genres. This blog is very practical in nature! That comes with many positives for our group, but it does alienate some great fiction reads. I bring to you a new series that quickly digests said great fiction, but in a way that doesn't detract from the practical focus of RRW.
Fast Fiction may or may not have book notes and Ramiah Reflects. It depends how Fast the review is - my goal is a 3 minute read.
Ramiah Recommended?
Yes! Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has an amazing TEDtalk, which first introduced me to her. I read Americanah as part of a book club at work and loved it from the first page. The best way I can describe is... it's like reading poetry.
Ifemelu, one of the protagonists, runs a Black lifestyle blog, commenting on everything from colorism, the "good hair" myth, Blackness membership (and how all within the Black diaspora are black in America regardless of national or ethnic origin.
In example, Ifemelu recounts when she was racially profiled by a person delivering a service for the family whom she was nannying for:
Sometimes in America, Race is Class... It didn't matter... how much money I had. As far as he was oncerned I did not fit as the owner of that stately house because of the way I looked. In America's public discourse, 'Blacks' as a whole are often lumped with 'Poor Whites.' Not Poor Blacks and Poor Whites. But Blacks and Poor Whites. A curious thing indeed. (pgs 106-107)
This was the first time I connected so much to characters. It was the first time in a long time I read Black stories. Americanah reflects the nuances of Black culture, things I experienced but never really read about. I found myself nodding, smiling, and saying "YES!" often as I read my Black experience reflected on the pages. Seeing parts of myself in these pages immediately woke me to my need to consume more Black stories way more than I do.
I'm not a Nigerian who came to America, like Ifemelu, or a Nigerian who briefly moved to London, like Ifemelu's love interest, Obinze. However, I was able to get a loose peak into specific experiences of Black immigration. In the book, an Americanah is someone who had come back from a trip to America with odd affectations, pretending to no longer understand Yoruba, adding a slurred r to every English word spoken (pg 24). Losing a sense of one's home and culture, replacing it with something that seems to be better or offer more prestige, is applicable to many.
The 'Blackness commentary' I expected to be the core of the book evolved into a life story of Ifemelu and Obinze. I emphasize 'life' because the way their stories connect from adolescent crushes to young adult reuniting was the closest representation of relationships that I've read thus far. Like the title suggests, Americanah's love story between Ifemelu and Obinze was 'nah-t" what I was expecting but I wasn't mad at it at all.
Just take this quote for example:
She rested her head against his and felt, for the first time, what she would often feel with him: A self-affection. He made her like herself. With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size (pg 30).
(Heart swells)
If that doesn't sell you on reading this book, I don't know what will.
Ramiah Reflects
My New Favorite Life Quotes:
It's never the same when you have choices.
It had saddened her that (Aunty Uju) had settled merely for what was familiar.
Questions to Ask Yourself (and answer!):
(No questions to ask yourself for this Fast Fiction).
Food for Thought:
Have you ever lost yourself in American culture, or another country's? In connection: "He was one of those pole who, in his village back home, would be called 'lost.' He went to America and got lost, his people would say. He went to America and refused to come back" (pg 54).
Ramiah's Re-read When
Re-read when:
You need to consume a un-apological blackness story
You want a cute love story to make your heart swell
You want to learn more about
(No book notes for this Fast Fiction.)
Check out my other posts and book notes here.
Until next time!
Montana Houston
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