Audiobook Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

I don't read very much young adult and I usually only pick up titles that a wide range of readers have enjoyed. Cinder is the first book in The Lunar Chronicles series and since the final book came out last year, I have been looking forward to giving the series a try. I listened to this first book on audio from Overdrive and it was definitely a good choice. I had similar good luck with listening to The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins on audio. Young adult novels as audiobooks seem to be the best way for me to ingest the stories.

Each book in this series is a sci-fi retelling of a fairytale. Cinder is a retelling of Cinderella where the princess is a cyborg. Meyer did a fantastic job of incorporating elements of the original fairytale into a very unique world. There were hints to other fairytales as well which made me eager to read the other books in the series. The writing was fast-paced and engaging and although I did figure out the major twist pretty early on, that didn't deter me from enjoying the book as a whole. If you don't read very much young adult, I think it is best to go in to these books looking for a good time and not to overanalyze every element.

As an audiobook, I thought this was great. Rebecca Soler narrates the book (and, I believe, the entire series) and she did an incredible job with all of the different voices. She was both female and male characters, droids, characters with accents and I was shocked at how effortlessly she flowed between them all. I will no doubt be reading all of the books in the series on audio if she is the narrator.

If a Cinderella-as-a-cyborg retelling sounds fun to you, I absolutely recommend giving this a read. And if you enjoy audiobooks or are like me and don't listen to a lot of them, I would give this a whirl in that format as well. It is definitely lighter than The Hunger Games but the interesting plot and engaging writing will suck you in in just the same way.

Review: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Since Americanah was published in 2013, I have been looking forward to the reading experience. I've heard generally positive reviews and had a feeling I would like it, or at least take something from it. I think one of the reasons I waited so long to read it was because of the whole delayed gratification concept us readers like to torture ourselves with; putting off books we know we are going to enjoy. (Also, it's over 500 pages and you know, that can be intimidating). I read Adichie's non-fiction abridged TED Talk We Should All Be Feminists last year and absolutely loved it. It was one of the first feminist things I had read that was intersectional and since then, I've been eagerly awaiting reading more of her work.

I ended up loving Americanah, and, though not perfect, hit me and pushed me and pulled me in ways I did not expect.

We follow Ifemelu, a young Nigerian woman, who emigrates to the United States to attend university and Obinze, a young Nigerian man, who tries to emigrate to London but ends up coming back to Nigeria. They are young lovers who part ways in their early twenties and meet again years later back in Nigeria. Ifemelu's experience in the United States was the majority of the story and the people she meets and the experiences she has really impact her identity as a Nigerian woman, a black woman, and a Non-American Black (NAB). She uses a blog to talk about different issues in the US from an NAB perspective and Adichie interweaves many different types of people into Ifemelu's life to enhance her analytical and curious nature. As Ifemelu looks back on her childhood in Nigeria, and then looks back on her life in the US once she moves back to Nigeria in her 30s, we see this entirely different perspective from someone who has been so many different women depending on where she has lived and the people she has formed relationships with.

Obinze's perspective is very small in comparison throughout the novel, and to be honest, I don't remember as many details of his life except when he is connected to Ifemelu. I think this is the biggest weakness of the book because I never got to connect with him and when we did get the story from his perspective, it felt out of place. I would have liked either a more balanced book between the two or zero chapters from his point of view and anything related to him would have come from Ifemelu's experiences with him.

To get the most of this book, I wouldn't make it a quick read. It's extremely engaging and the writing pulled me in, but taking time to think about what Adichie is saying will showcase the real magic of this novel.

It also reminded me a bit of Zadie Smith and Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue.

Americanah is extremely relevant today and I would recommend this book to anyone who thinks it sounds interesting and/or wants to open their mind up to looking at the world in a different way.