Review: Americanah

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I had really enjoyed Adichie's [b:Half of a Yellow Sun|18749|Half of a Yellow Sun|Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327934717s/18749.jpg|1651408] so I was looking forward to reading this, and it didn't disappoint.

This book follows the story of two young lovers from Nigeria. One leaves to build a life in America, while the other one remains in Nigeria. Their lives diverge and it is a fascinating set of parallel stories. The one who goes to America struggles with ideas of racial identity, which didn't exist for her in Nigeria. The one who stays in Nigeria tries to emigrate to London. They both find relationships and friendships and build lives for themselves.

Their lives are a really great set of foils for each other's experiences. The book concludes many years later when they both find themselves back in Nigeria and back in touch. I completely enjoyed reading this book and look forward to her next one.



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Review: The Ghost Bride

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Disclosure: one of Webster's colleagues is friends with the author and they gave me a copy as a gift.

I think the only impact that knowing the author had on me was that I read a book I wouldn't have necessarily otherwise picked up. That said, I LOVED it.

The story is about a young woman who grows up in Malaya, a Chinese colony. Her family is bankrupt, her father addicted to opium, and it seems like her only option may be to become the "ghost bride" of the deceased son of a well-to-do family. She travels into the Chinese afterworld to investigate this man and ends up stumbling into a web of family secrets and wondering if she can ever return.

I could not put this book down. The first section, where she is in Malacca (a town in Malaya), was really interesting, learning about a new culture and surroundings. But the second part of the book, which takes place in the afterworld, was fascinating - I loved reading about the afterworld, how it was organized, its interactions with the living world - and I could picture it so clearly.

Part mystery, part fantasy, part novel, I won't forget this book for a long time.



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Review: The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story

The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story by Lily Koppel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book was ok. I thought it would be interesting to read about the wives of the first astronauts, and I guess it was, but the book didn't hit it out of the park.

In fact, I was surprised to read at the end of the book that the author had interviewed some of the wives, because the tone of the book was one of distance. I was expecting to read more about the women's thoughts and feelings. In the book, there is a lot of talk of the Life Magazine reporters who follow the women around, and yet I didn't find the book's depiction of their lives much more nuanced than that.

What I did enjoy was reading about the NASA missions. It was cool to read about the first orbits of the earth, then trip to the moon. I was transported back to the 1960's when this was all occurring, and appreciated learning about the events as they happened, rather than as history. I had no idea that astronauts and their families were so high profile as to be "hanging out" with President and Ladybird Johnson.

I think I would have enjoyed a book about the first few space missions more than this one with the "wives" angle.



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