I found this a difficult book to rate. There are so many amazing aspects to it (listed below), yet I was getting impatient as was a bit let down by the end. If I had to sum it up to a new potential reader, think 'Where The Crawdads Sing' but about a Nigerian woman who emigrates to America.

As with long literary novels, Americanah has all the usual pros going for it: excellent character development, and rich scene setting and storytelling over the lifetime of the characters, so you really get to know them. I read this via audiobook and I found that listening to the different accents and knowing how to ponounce African names correctly enhanced my enjoyment significantly.

Pros that are significant to this book in particular: a candid telling of different immigration experiences, an insight into identity crises (quietly but powerfully told through the character Dike), cultural and historical commentary on Nigeria and American in the early 21st Century, and a whole breadth of exploration of race and being a non-American Black woman - from family dynamics, to hair, to accents, to education, to religion, to food, to aesthetics, to colorism, to sex and relationships, this book is a comprehensive insight into a Nigerian Black woman's life supported wonderfully by her blog entries specifically posing questions and observations about race.

The cons are mostly personal to me, I don't think they detract from the writing of the book. The one I was most disappointed with is how Ifemelu (the protagonist) seems constantly defined by her relationships to men. This of course, could be the point, because of the clear consistent love between her and Obinze, or a criticism of hetero patriarchal culture - expressed clearly in the closing chapters in Lagos when Ifemelu writes about her friend Ranyinudo. I just wish throughout the narration of her life, we got a little more about Ifemelu, and not just Ifemelu-and-her-boyfriend-at-the-time. I was also getting frustrated towards the end when Ifemelu and Obinze were circling each other BUT NOT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING UNTIL THE LAST BLOODY MOMENT.