maybe 3 1/2 stars.

Americanah is a book that leaves me feeling very ambivalent. On the one hand, what works for me, is story about what it is like to be a young middle class girl growing up in Nigeria and then later coming to America. It is a story about young love, ambition, and the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land, coming to terms with your place in the world. It gave keen insight as to what the non American born black can expect to experience in a still somewhat racist American society. It was thought provoking and at times uncomfortable for me to realize the only reason I don't consider race as an issue in America today is because I'm privileged not to have to. So kudos and points for Adichie for writing a somewhat in your face novel.

On the other hand what does not work for me is the whole rest of the book. The main character Ifemelu is unlikable, oblivious, selfish and self sabotaging. I quickly came to dislike her and as she had few redeeming qualities, this made the rest of the book hard to get through. There was no real character development; you never understood why Ifemelu did some of the inexplicable things she did. And as she was the only character besides her soul mate and childhood sweetheart Obinze who even had cursory character development, it made the book seem overly long, drawn out and uninteresting. Characters came and went but Ifemelu gained nothing from their presence in her life and why should she? They were just cardboard cut outs and caricatures. Plus she acted like she knew everything anyway.

So, the race issues were dealt with in an interesting and thought provoking way in the blog posts and cocktail party discussions. But the rest of the story seemed cobbled together just so the author had the platform to pontificate from. Weak characters, weak unbelievable plot makes for a slog of a book. The only reason I'm rating it so highly is because it did cause me to pause and contemplate some of the issues of race that were brought up and realize I simply don't understand the half of it.