Rated: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Read 20 in 2020 Challenge Category: book by an author from Africa, Asia, and Oceania
Review: I read this book for the library-sponsored book discussion group that I lead, and as I was reading, I was thinking to myself "however am I going to lead a discussion about this book with a group of middle- and upper-middle class white women without all of us choking on our own hypocrisy?" And I realized that the only possible way was to get that issue out of the way right up front. So we started out our discussion by owning our own perspectives and acknowledging that each of us came to this book with our own set of assumptions.
I'm pleased to report that my tactic of putting it out there allowed us to have a frank and honest conversation about this book, perhaps one of the best book discussions we've had (YMMV). And there's a lot to discuss in this book! Adichie does not pull her punches in describing the thoughts of Ifemelu, her main character, on racism and classism and immigrants and love and going home again. Ifemelu has a blog on which she explores many of these issues, and her blog posts punctuate the narrative, creating a different way of sharing her insights than the typical internal monologue. Ifemelu's reflections may provoke you to examine your own beliefs on these topics. I think she would hope so.
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