I could connect with Ifemelu, the main character of the book at so many levels. She moves to the US, leaving her homeland Nigeria, her love, and her family behind. She faces a new world where for the first time she realises she is ‘black’.
A strong, confident, self-made woman, Ifemelu grows apart from her lover and her homeland. Only to realise that she is yearning to go back to it all. She comes back changed, hardened, more aware and having experienced a world that Lagos could never have provided. She comes back to rekindle her love for her homeland and her lover, and to start a new life.
This book was recommended by a friend, soon after I moved out of my homeland for the first time. I started it with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm, and put it down feeling amazed at the way it had been written. Woven across three continents, the author made me fall in love with the landscape of Nigeria and the US, and what it can offer and take away from a young girl who has moved in and out of her homeland.
The book gives you a sense of what race, identity, relationships, comfort food and hair dressing means to a young woman, and the ease with which she has written about it all amazes me. Her funny and extremely vivid depiction of expressions, emotions and appearances kept me hooked. I felt like I was living Ifemelu life through the time I was reading about her.
