I finally finished reading “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie after close to a year of having to put it off. I’m a college student, after all, and I’m specifically an English major so I’m too busy reading Jane Austen and William Shakespeare — no offense to those beautiful writers who I love — and writing short stories and essays to read for pleasure. Finally, during the summer before I am supposed to go study abroad, I am trying to catch up on the books that have been collecting in my living room and virtual libraries that I bought with every intention to read. So, my first book on my to-read shelf on my Goodreads and in real life was “Americanah,” a book that I have been trying to finish since January.

The girl who read “Breaking Dawn” in a weekend cringes within me.

“Americanah” follows two young Nigerians as they leave their country to follow their dreams and go through the harsh challenges of life. It’s written by the award-winning author of "Half of a Yellow Sun" — another book that’s on my Goodreads to-read shelf — and feminist badass Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who many of you may recognize from Beyoncé’s “Flawless.” In this novel by her, a story of love and race unfold through the lives of Ifemelu and Obinze. As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, the pair fall in love. However, because of the harsh climate of Nigerian military dictatorship, Ifemelu decides to leave to pursue her education in America. There, she discovers the weight of racism in America as well as other failures, successes, love, and breakups. Meanwhile, Obinze tries to find his way through a dangerous, undocumented life in London, England when America refuses to let him in. Years later after having oceans between them, Obinze and Ifemelu meet again in Nigeria, older and wiser but still very much in love. Still, love is not so easily gotten.

Overall, the novel is fearless, gripping, hilarious, gentle, tender, wonderfully long, powerful, rich in detail, and sweet. I wish it could be a movie. It read like a beautiful rom-com with black people living their normal lives, and it made me hunger for more of that itch to be scratched, for more movies to portray the humorous love that can be shared between NABs and ABs alike — For those who haven’t read the book, non-american blacks and american blacks. Reading it made me want to read more books like it. I adored it, and it may be one of my favorite books of all time.

Now, if you came here expecting me to write a glowing literary critical review of the book that sounds like: “Winding sentences detail the long distance between the pair until they unite together with the final short words at the end with connection,” you are wrong. This is not it. I am not that kind of English major. Like Ifemelu, I read emotionally. I read to find beauty and wonder in my books. I read for love in its multiple forms. I make connections to my own reality. I was able to do that with this book.

“Americanah” mixes love, race, and politics in order to tell its story. For me, this book has hit very close to my own reality. I am an activist and a writer, who’s been through my fair share of trials and tribulations. I relate to Ifemelu because we have so much in common.

Just like Ifemelu also, I have had past loves and likes, especially in my college career. I have loved and lost more than I would like to admit to, but I have learned from each and every relationship I have been in. I have learned what I like, what I want, who I am, what can I take, and so much more. I have learned that I am pansexual and open to more than I thought I ever would be. I learned that I am more than society’s expectations for me. I learned that I want an Obinze, and I sincerely hope that I and everyone around me finds one in some shape or form.

“Americanah” was brilliant. I loved the bluntness of its reality. I enjoyed the America and the Africa within this novel because it was too real and true as it touches on everything. The novel combined race, love, and so much more in a beautifully masterful way. This book was a true masterpiece to read.

I hope I can write like it one day.