Writers of Color Book Club discussion

Here we will discuss Chapters 43-end. Please make sure that you are courteous when divulging events in the book. If you feel like it is going to give something HUGE away in the book please use the (view spoiler)[spoiler brackets. (hide spoiler)]

By the last parts of this book I was kind of becoming distracted by Adichie using the characters and the book as a whole as a way to talk about race and cultural issues. I felt like there was so much she was cramming in without much regard to the plot. The reviews I've been reading are really slating the ending, but I feel like I shouldn't put too much emphasis on the end of the novel as it's really a book that focuses more on the journey of the characters and not on their end point. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thought!

Agreed! This was my initial reaction to the ending. The main characters' ending actions were so out of character (especially Ifemelu's) that it moved from feeling like Adichie was telling a fictional story to her forcibly moving her characters around to fit her agenda.

I agree about Adichie using her characters to get across her own racial and cultural agenda; but I wouldn't limit it to the last part of the book. I think it is true of the book as a whole.

Obinze is my favorite character. Who's yours? I think of him as the Nigerian counterpart to Mr. Darcy! Perhaps not quite as handsome and certainly not as arrogant but everybody's dream man.

My overall view: Adichie is a wonderful storyteller but has not yet fully mastered the art of creating really rounded characters. As alluded to earlier, they're more points of view.

I actually really liked Dike as a character, I thought he seemed like such a nice kid. Although we never seem to have any resolution to why he does what he does- maybe this was just a plot device on Adichie's part?

I like Dike, too, but I agree with you about what Adichie has in store for him finally. Definitely, I think, part of her agenda of showing the negative effects of America.

Yet she lives in the U.S. part time?

I agree that the end of the novel definitely felt a bit forced. I also think that the story was very rushed from the point when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria. I thought her being in America showed a lot of interesting aspects of American culture and the comparisons to Nigerian culture were well made. But when Ifemelu moves to Lagos Adichie is trying to, in less than 100 pages, explain everything about the political and social situation in Nigeria and it just wasn't enough time and space in the story to do this in a well-thought-out-way.

Overall I really liked this book though and I'm excited to read her two other novels. I hope they are as interesting and thought provoking but maybe not as uneven in pace and story development.