Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I decided to read this book because I’ve heard so many good things about Adichie’s writing. And I happened to find this book in my used book store, so I picked it up, and after a spell on my TBR shelf I finally got around to reading it. 

I didn’t really have any idea what this book was about, but it turns out it was an interesting topic. The book follows a number of main protagonists living in Nigeria in the 1960s. This is the time when part of Nigeria broke free to form the independant republic of Biafra. Biafra was short-lived however, as war broke out with Nigeria and the enthusiasm of the Biafran people could just not make up for a lack of an army or international trade connections. 

The book follows an extended family including two sisters, their lovers/husbands and a houseboy. It starts off with the houseboy, Ugwu, coming to work for Odenigbo. We see the life lived by the intellectuals in what will eventually become Biafra in the 1960s, and we see how Odenigbo meets and falls in love with Olanna, a woman from the privileged ranks of society, being the daughter of a chief. We follow their personal problems as their families are none too pleased about their unmarried status, and especially Olanna’s rocky relationship with her sister Kainene. All their personal problems take a backseat to the revolution and the war, and we follow them and the new country in their backwards slide and eventual surrender to circumstances. 

I thought the story was interesting and it was a topic I haven’t read too much about, but for some reason I found that the writing style was sort of detached and that kept me from really connecting with the characters. There seemed to be underlying issues in most of the relationships that weren’t really dealt with, like why Kainene and Olanna stopped being close, before the events of the books and why Richard did what he did. The story also jumps in time, but only two or three times, which confused me a little and then didn't really seem necessary, as it then jumped back and explained what had happened in the mean time. Why not just have a chronological narrative then? 

So while I did have some issues with it, I mainly thought it was interesting and I gave it 3 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.