It's a Books World

Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie is one of the first (John Green is my first, but I read all of his books a while ago). authors which I've read every single book by, so I thought it would be a great idea to tell you how I wanted to read all of her books and my review of each one. 

At first I heard Booktubers talking about how great Americanah was and they also mentioned the Ted talk called ''We Should All be Feminists''. I watched that talk first and it got me excited to read all of her novels. You can watch the video here. There is also a written short novel, but because I think/heard it's the same text as in the video I decided not to buy and read that one.

I decided to look up her other novels and found out that she has three main novels and one short story collection, so I bought the entire novel collection first and so I read them with the essay/letter Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions and the short story collection (called The Thing Around Your Neck) in between. 

My opinion is that her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, is her best novel. It made me feel and blew my mind. It's about a fifteen year old girl in Nigeria and what made it so feel so much is because of how she (and most likely) girl were treated back in the days and even in 2017. I'm glad I read this novel first and not Americanah. 

Then I decided to read Americanah, but I was a bit disappointed. I think it's because she keeps repeating her themes and how she thinks about a certain topic over and over. I understand that she has those opinions and I agree with them, but sometimes it gets repeated too many times. I also found the novel a bit lengthy and it didn't make me feel as much. It's also about culture difference (Nigeria vs The United States) and I liked that part, but it could've been explored more (it was a bit flat to me). 

This year was also the release of Dear Ijeawele and even though it includes the same topics again, it was written differently and it also talked more on how to raise your children in a feminist way (like don't let gender hold both of them back) and I loved it! It was also short and fast paced and straight to the point.

I got excited again about the one I haven't read back then and decided to read Half of a Yellow Sun (I still haven't watched the movie adaption of it, is it good?). My personal opinion is that it's not as good as Purple Hibiscus, but way much better than Americanah. It made feel, but it was kinda lengthy and some parts (only a few) were a bit boring and there wasn't that much feminism talk in it. 

After I finished all of these books I finally read her short story collection. It's my least favorite of hers and that's because I'm not that much a fan of short stories. I liked some of them (the first two) but I disliked at least the half of them. When I liked a story I wanted to read more... There were also so many foreign names in it that it got a bit confusing as well (which makes sense, because they took place in Nigeria). 

So here's my conclusion and suggestion. I still loved all of her books and recommend to read them all (but Puplre Hibiscus will always be my favorite and not Americanah). If you haven't read any of her novels, I suggest to watch the Ted talk first. If you like what she's talking about, then read her novels in chronological order and read Dear Ijeawele after you've read Purple Hibiscus. Then you get the most out it, I think (or you can do it the other way and start with my least favorite and build it all the way up, but that's up to you).

What's your opinion about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Which one is your favorite and your least?