As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Then they go their separate ways from Nigeria with Ifemelu going to America and Obinze going to the UK. They both later return to Lagos and this story tells their experiences in 3 countries and the relationships they had.
Americanah is a mix, it is a love story but not a heavy one. There is no graphic sex and the emotional pulls are on the light side. There is a lot of content about race and what it means to be a Non-American Black living in the US. Also there is a lot about African hair styles and how Black African Americans have moved away from the natural look. The majority of this story is from Ifemelu’s point of view.
Americanah is an amusing read and rather pleasant. But everything is rather light, the humour is shallow and there are no shocks. A long time ago I read Chimamanda’s second novel called Half of a Yellow Sun. That book was brilliant, intense and with a strong emotional hold - I gave it the top score of 5 stars. However, Americanah is a disappointment and is an okay - 3 star read in the style of a women’s weekly magazine like Take A Break.
I found this book lacking but all the time I hoped it would improve. However it continued to be second rate all along and was not rewarding. There was nothing quirky or special about this story and it was a rather regular immigrant worker tale. But the covering at length of the issues of race within America raised the bar of this novel to an okay - 3 star read. There was one thing that really impressed me though, it was the dramatic ending that if Obinze had been a character on the popular BBC television soap opera EastEnders, would have given him the honour of the closing scene drums! This ending was brilliant and had me feeling warm hours after whilst I walked our pet dog in our local park.
To illustrate the quality of Chimamanda’s writing and the mild humour within her novel, I will finish my review with 2 quotes that apart from the ending, may be the best snips in the whole novel.
… At the checkout, the blonde cashier asked, “Did anybody help you?”
“Yes.” Ginika said.
“Chelcy or Jennifer?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember her name.” Ginika looked around, to point at her helper, but both young women had disappeared into the fitting rooms at the back.
“Was it the one with long hair?” the cashier asked.
“Well, both of them had long hair.”
“The one with dark hair?”
Both of them had dark hair.
Ginika smiled and looked at the cashier and the cashier smiled and looked at her computer screen, and two damp seconds crawled past before she cheerfully said, “It’s okay, I’ll figure it out later and make sure she gets her commission.”
As they walked out of the store, Ifemelu said, “I was waiting for her to ask ‘Was it the one with two eyes or the one with two legs?’ Why didn’t she just ask ‘Was it the black girl or the white girl?’”
Ginika laughed. “Because this is America. You’re supposed to pretend that you don’t notice certain things.”...
But back in Lagos, Nigeria, attitudes are rather different.
…”Good customer service, good customer service, good customer service.” Bisola said. “Folks here behave as if they are doing you a favour by serving you. The high-end places are okay, not great, but the regular restaurants? Forget it. The other day I asked a waiter if I could get boiled yam with a different sauce than was on the menu and he just looked at me and said no. Hilarious.”
Americanah has 447 pages and was written in 2013.
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