I've been trying out the storygraph this year as an alternative to Goodreads (because fuck Amazon), and as a big fan of stats and graphs I think I'm officially converted
What are you reading this weekend? I’m getting ready to dive into this beauty. I just love the cover. It brings some color into this otherwise dreary weekend here. #maame #weekendread #upandcomingauthor #prettycovers #readingbringspeopletogether #bookart #readwithjenna #currentlyreading #books #onmybookshelf #bookstagram @readwithjenna @stmartinspress https://www.instagram.com/p/CpGPTtLPCN2/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Maame by Jessica George, the recent pick from my friends’ book club, left us all a bit underwhelmed. Based on the concept, the book seemed promising, but throughout I struggled to connect with the protagonist and my 30-something friends felt the same. To me, the protagonist’s problems were limited to the scope of a twenty-five-year-old—a twenty-five-year-old who had lived a very sheltered life and so, in many ways, felt younger than her years. I kept hoping this book would delve more deeply into the complexities of race, particularly in the arts/publishing industry (imagining something more along the lines of R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface), or the immigrant experience and the challenging dynamic between a younger generation and their parents. Yet everything here felt surface-level, gesturing at these ideas, but never reframing nor dissecting them. This is not to say that this book wouldn’t be a rewarding read for somebody who shared life experiences and emotional ground with the protagonist. I think it would feel very affirming to read this book, if you were in a similar phase of life as the protagonist. You would likely respond to the book’s natural flow and readability, which feels realistic and genuine. You would probably feels less alone in how unrooted and confusing being this age can feel.
I realized partway through the book how similar the author bio’s was to the life of the protagonist and I wondered if this is more memoir than fiction. If true, I’m not sure why this wasn’t just written as a memoir and billed as a memoir? I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was clearly memoir because I would’ve been putting the story and its events into the context of a young person writing their first book and exploring their own point-of-view rather than expecting literary affection, where the author provides insights and commentary on urgent and/or timeless themes through literary structures and devices. That being said, the strongest creative nonfiction (in my opinion, or at least what I have most enjoyed) also reveals broader, applicable thinking through the experiences of the narrator. Some of the experiences that Maddie goes through include moving away from home for the first time and the pressure put on her from parents that don’t want her to move out, having her first boyfriend, realizing said boyfriend is two-timing her, getting let go from her job, and finding a new and better-fit job. These problems (common for someone in their early to mid-twenties) were often dealt with in exactly the way I would’ve predicted rather than in a way that surprised me or added nuanced through layered thinking. For example, her first break up was tied to the unequal treatment Maddie realized that Ben was giving the two women he was simultaneously dating. Maddie quickly pieced together that Ben wanted to be “public” with Sophie because of her race. He introduced her to his family, invited her to parties, and took her out around London, while Maddie was relegated to meals at home. This tension provided an opening to talk about interracial relationships and how family and social perception repeatedly devalues young women of color; instead, this topic was moved on from quickly and undermined by the book’s idealistic ending.
The ending felt simply like “wish-fulfillment” because Maddie found “the perfect man” right after all of this emotional turmoil. A man of her same race and intellectual stature (an artist, with similar interests, no less!) drops into her lap. Miraculously, Maddie also seems to have a better relationship with her mother—even though nothing would change in that relationship based its history—once she meets her mother’s standard of “having a boyfriend.” Her mother still pesters her about getting married, but now this banter has a cute and fun tone because she has hot, perfect boyfriend Sam who seems obsessed with her. I found this quick ending very unrealistic, and even if it is possible (it does happen, occasionally, that someone finds their perfect match when all the chips are down in their life), given that this book is fiction, it seemed like a wasted chance to do something other than resolve problems with the wave of a magic wand. Very little is made of the fact that Sam was previously dating Maddie’s housemate Jo, even though the two girls have had a tumultuous friendship. I got more out of the dynamic with housemates Jo and Cam than most other dynamics in the book. These dynamics were not easily solved. Three very different girls became friends quickly, but the cracks begin to show and no one seems wholly in the right or wrong. Jo was insensitive about Maddie’s father’s death and did not jump to support her in the wake of this. But Maddie also made choices to court these girls’ friendship early on, and, in the wake of dramatically accusing Jo of being the reason she wasn’t at her father’s side when he died, simply withdraw.
Next thing we know, Maddie is dating Jo’s perfect ex and they never talk about this really. The inability of these girls to lean into difficult conversations did, I suppose, feel very “we’re only 25!” I’m not sure if I’m being too hard on them (and I wouldn’t, were they real people!), but, as characters in a book, they ended up being bland and not particularly complex. Similarly, Maddie’s friends Nia and Shu are perfect friends, self-sacrificing and deeply understanding. Maddie behaves as if she’s all alone in the world and then has two friends who know her private self and her full life experiences. I was baffled by this.
The heart of this book is Maddie’s loss of her father and her grappling with the guilt she feels over having moved out months before his death. She comes to appreciate—through the words and reminders of others—how much her dad did love her. She comes to see how central she was in his life, how well she knew him (not in informational knowledge, but in her familiarity with him). She was there for him so many times when it mattered. The emotional core of this book is a beautiful testament to a father-daughter relationship. But it is surrounded by problems that pale in comparison, like noise distracting from something that could have been beautiful in shades of quiet gray. It was hard to mourn alongside Maddie because the book tied her mourning up with Ben’s annoyingness, Jo’s immaturity, her mom’s obvious guilt-tripping, and Sam’s weird savior vibes.
Keche Unveils Mesmerizing Visuals for Their New Single “MAAME”
Ghanaian music duo Keche continue their impressive run with the release of the official music video for “MAAME,” a song that blends emotion, rhythm, and unmistakable coastal vibes. The visuals elevate the track beautifully, offering fans an immersive experience that brings the music to life in a whole new way.
One of the highlights of the video is the electrifying performance by TEAM WARRIORS,…
