Finished: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. ...her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out. Great, great book! Rather than a page-turner, this was a book to be savored about a young Nigerian couple, Ifemelu and Obinze, who are in love but grow apart when Ifemelu travels to live in the United States, and Obinze, unable to obtain a similar visa, is left behind. Their love for each other is always there, even though both go on to have other very meaningful relationships, Obinze even marrying and having a daughter. Most of the story belongs to Ifemelu as she lands in America to extensive culture shock and must learn new ways, new foods, new ideas. The biggest shock to Ifemelu....racism! In her country EVERYONE is black. There is no class division by race which she finds in America. American African Americans don't consider Africans or Jamaicans or any other black person who migrates to America one of their own, either. They don't think people from foreign countries can possibly understand what their forefathers went through. Ifemelu talks to Obinze about everything when she first goes to America and their love remains strong even with the distance. However, when Ifemelu has to do something almost as unsavory as having sex with a man for money to make ends meet, she develops a terrible sense of self-worth and self-loathing and falls into a depression. She refuses to accept any more letters, phone calls or emails from Obinze until finally, years pass and he has been cut out of her life without explanation to him. It's terribly sad. :-( Ifemelu begins a very successful blog about "Black America" that discusses all kinds of topics faced by black Americans. She acquires thousands of followers, along with enough sponsors to make herself both money to live on and money to send home to her parents. Still, too much time has passed and Obinze becomes part of her past as she has deep relationships with two other men, Curt and then Blaine. One day, it finally hits Ifemelu that she has not been happy in America and she decides to quit her blog and move back to Nigeria! Once there, it takes her time to adjust back to the non-American ways she'd become accustomed to. Meanwhile, Obinze had faced nightmares of his own. In addition to Ifemelu cutting him off and breaking his heart, he went to London on a temporary visa and then tried to stay their illegally working under someone else's name. Deported back to Nigeria when caught, somehow (it's not specifically stated in the book), Obinze does manage to put his university degree to use in Nigeria and begins buying rental properties. After a few years go by, he's a very rich man, married to a wife who he finds beautiful, but who he doesn't love the way he does Ifemelu. He's got a two-year old daughter he adores, though...the light of his life. When Ifemelu briefly emails him that she's coming back to Nigeria after the silence of those four or five years, his heart doesn't know what to do. Ifemelu doesn't contact Obinze right away when she comes back, but gives herself time to adjust. One day she runs into Obinze and the sparks are still there! They begin seeing each other, and though Obinze feels guilty about his wife, he can't help how he feels for Ifemelu. When Obinze asks his wife for a divorce, she refuses and tells him he will not only be breaking up their family, but he will ruin his little daughter Buchi's life. As a result, Obinze and Ifemelu go their separate ways for about seven months until one day Obinze shows up on Ifemelu's doorstep declaring he has left his wife...he could no longer live without Ifemelu. She invites him. The End. This is a very simplistic summary of a beautifully written book. Ifemelu's experiences in America are detailed and heartrending. Their experiences together are full of love, then separation, mutual support, then loss of each other....all written to make the reader feel and think. I like it when a book makes me think beyond just the typical story of boy meets girl in America or England or wherever....when an entire different culture and way of life is thrown in to enrich the experience!

This is just a little snippet of writing that I liked at the beginning of the book when Ifemelu was breaking up with Blaine to move back to Nigeria. They'd been totally happy together, so it catches him completely off guard. He wants to know why and these are her thoughts:

But she had not had a bold epiphany and there was no cause; it was simply that layer after layer of discontent had settled in her, and formed a mass that now propelled her. She did not tell him this, because it would hurt him to know she had felt that way for a while, that her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out.