“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.” It is difficult to pull quotes from this book that don’t sound cheesy out of context. But that’s the point. Eleanor and Park are sixteen; this is their first love. This is when they understand butterflies, this is when they feel disintegration upon touch, sleepless nights, sneaking first kisses, always stumbling for words that aren’t yet there, because they […]
As told by a dead bunny and a butterfly
This book is mysterious, intervowen, beautiful, almost childish in its narrative, but definitely not in plot. It is a story told in past tense between a skeleton of a rabbit and an orange butterfly traveling across an unknown place. The rabbit tells the story of Sissy; a young girl with two different colored eyes. She travels with a man named fox from city to city, earning a living as story tellers. In one of the towns a man gives Sissy quite an important piece of […]
A heart-wrenching classic
Janie is married to a man when she is 16, because her grandmother, a former slave, wants to ensure a good life for her. Janie is miserable. To her there must be love in a marriage and she sets into the marriage waiting for love to happen. When she meets Joe one day she decides to run away with him, being struck by his big dreams and certainty of good things in life. They settle down in Eatonwille, an all black town, and Joe quickly […]
Chasing Nigeria, in America
Ifemulu and Obinze are seperated by half the world. Ifemulu is a Nigerian living a successful life in America with her black boyfriend. She blogs about the race struggles of the American and frequents intellectual university environments. Obinze lives in Nigeria with his beautiful wife and child, earning money on land deals. Neither of them are happy. Ifemulu closes her blog and decides to move back to Nigeria and the memory of Obinze starts to grow strong. They were teenage lovers in Lagos, but Ifemulu […]