Post Novel: Americanah

First things first, this was an amazing book. I feel like amazing is not a good enough literary word to describe how this book made me feel. Chimamanda transported me all over the world. She gave, what felt to me like first hand knowledge. She made me fully believe the experiences of these characters. The love story of Efemelu and Obinze jarred my heart open: it made me believe in love and it made me hate love. I wanted to dig deeper into their lives, probably even interview both protagonists in order to help me understand what exactly they were thinking. I wanted them to explain themselves, with me acting as a jury. I wanted to decide who was wrong, right, or at fault. I wanted to meet their parents and have a conversation, especially with Obinze's mother. She seemed to me as the ideal simple (not too extravagant like other Nigerian women), beautiful woman: smart and understanding of youthful love. I felt like even I could tell her anything and I wanted her to give me advice and ask me to translate my name for her. I was shaken by each individual character and almost surprised at how Chimamanda was able to give delicate details of each of them, helping us readers better understand their personalities and attributes. In whole, the book is one I thoroughly enjoyed and as usual for me (with great books) I did not want the story to end. Once I arrived at the last chapter, and I knew it was the last chapter, I felt as sense of loss. One criticism though, as with many books written by great authors, I felt the story ended too abruptly and it felt a bit rushed. I simply wanted more of an explanation and not just the quick 'and this is how the story ends' that you get with most books, almost making you feel as though the author ran out of time or the book was becoming too dense and she had to cut out what to her felt irrelevant - but I SAY THIS TO ALL AUTHORS, NOTHING IS IRRELEVANT! I SIMPLY WANT TO KNOW MORE! Give me all the juicy details! Please. The ending itself upset me quite a bit; not that it was such a shocking ending or anything, but it just left me saying "wtf really?!", and I was confused. To end on a less threatening note, after and while reading the book, I felt myself inherently speaking little phrases of Ibo like "ogini" and "ndo", which I'm not even entirely sure what they mean - Chimamanda did this to me.

7.03pm on a Sunday

Sometimes you just wanna slap your mum. 

But in my country, it's a taboo. 

- the angry daughter mixtape coming soon...