Americanah is at once a love story, a coming of age tale, a commentary on race in the US, and a story about going home or finding home or figuring out what home means.
The best parts are Ifemelu's blog posts about race in America because they are so timely and important, and feel so real and not part of a novel. But the story of how growing up in one place and trying to make a life in another can be so fraught with suffering and joy, with scary difference and happiness and belonging. But it also explores how belonging isn't more than a mile wide and an inch deep and sometimes where you left is where you belonged all along.
The characters aren't perfect people, they are flawed and sometimes make good choices and sometimes make poor choices. But isn't that what we all so? It is what makes these characters so well written, they feel like they are reflections of real people and not perfect paper people.
The prose is so beautiful and descriptive even when it is telling us something ugly.
This was a great way to start off my new year of reading adventure.
(Finished January 3, 2018)
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