Americanah

Written by: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

First line: Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, and although Ifemalu likes the tranquil greenness of the many trees, the clean streets and stately homes, the delicately overpriced shops, and the quiet, abiding air of earned grace, it was this, this lack of smell that most appealed to her, perhaps because the other American cities she knew well had all smelled distinctly.

Why you should read this book: At one point in the narrative the main character thinks that it's annoying when someone asks what a book's about, because a book can be about many things, as this book is. It's about growing up in Nigeria and it's about being a young African adult living in America; it's about politics and it's about sociology, it's about family and it's about culture; it's about race and racism and gender and class and the internet and home and relationships and economics and fairness and desire and depression and crime and necessity, and other things. At its heart, to me, this book felt like a very unconventional love story, one in which the simple course of true love is interrupted by the stupidest kind of politics and the main characters are forced apart for most of the story because the world we live in doesn't love lovers as much as it loves money and class and geopolitical boundaries.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't even know how to listen to discussions about race.