by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (2025) ★★★★★ First read in May 2025 --- Read it while on holiday, the first fiction book after again a long-ish hiatus. I had forgotten my books at home and so bought this one in the airport. What I was left with: - a sense of togetherness (is this what the opposite of loneliness is?) - this deep (but unmentionable, because I have no words for it) feeling, and also very visual, almost like an image on my retina. - Seeing myself looking at a truly alien world / society / culture from a bit of a distance but being able to really "see" it, without fear. - Understanding and accepting it's alien, different, unknown. - I guess the closest I can come to describing it is the _feeling of looking at the unknown without fear._ And I think the strangeness, the new-ness of it (to me) lies in this attribute of "alien". So it's not that the lack of fear comes from a warm hippie place of recognising we're all the same, or something like that. No, it's recognising the alien as alien and yet having not fear. Weird. - And so no usual reaction of wanting "to save them" (saving for example the abused muslim women) or to look away in horror. - a rich, nuanced view of people. - a combined perspective of a "most generous interpretation" and a less generous interpretation of the same woman. OF all four of them. For example: - is Omelogor _a petty bully_ or _a brilliant fighter_? - is Chiamaka _a noble dreamer_ or _a weakly coward_? --- Lead female character(s): - **Chiamaka** - **Kadiatou** - **Omelogor** - **Zikora** and a few other female characters: - Chiamaka's mother - Zikora's mother - Omelogor's friends - Kadiatou's sister Binta --- ## Quotes I liked ### Chiamaka The leftist snobs - "They were ironic about liking what they liked, for fear of liking what they were not supposed to like, and they were unable to feel admiration, and so criticized people they could simply have admired." (pg 24). - this reminded of people I was close to, especially one particular friend that had this, and still probably does. - In the shortest moment, self-doubt can swoop down and swallow you whole, leaving nothing behind.. - I want to write light, funny takes on travel, and to her I'm just an African who should write about struggles. - "The problem is that many of these white people don't think we also dream." "Chia, you'll find the right editor. There is definitely somebody in publishing who will understand. **Just keep trying.**" (my emphasis, this sentence here blew me away, as the most improbably, perfect thing someone can say to someone else) A rich Nigerian lady, Chiamaka's mother: - about the US: _"This country is not civilised. (...) They don't know how to provide service with finesse. Even the way they talk. "Let's go and grab lunch." How can you be grabbing your lunch?_ - _"She wanted the world to be perfect for the deserving and the deserving were the ones she loved"_ - _"All she said after a trip to Nairobi with my father was **"Did nobody teach Kenyans about seasoning and spices?"**_ About this relationship I thought .. Why (how) is she (Chiamaka) so generous with her mum, this spoilt entitled rich lady? Why this "most generous interpretation" of her mom and not see her negativity, her entitlement etc? ### Kadiatou - "I'm so happy to come to this country, so _Binta can have this country_." (my own highlight) ### Omelogor - "Omelogor is a bully. She's not, it's just that her passion can be too much " - "Omelogor saw others so clearly and yet was blind to herself - how her certainties could intimidate, how her words scalded even if she didn't mean them to. And maybe she wore her brilliance a little too easily." - "Omelogor once said she was happy Nigeria wasn't a tourist country because 'people become props, and countries become performances instead of places.'" (pg 31) This dialogue could have well been between myself and a family member or a friend back home: "Nothing beats living in your own country if you can afford the life you ant." "Until you have an accident. There isn't one proper hospital trauma unit in the whole of Nigeria." "I know, it's scary." - Oh no, people will always watch porn. I just want to get enough people to laugh at how stupid it is. ### Zikora