User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
When I got the depths of this novel, here during these dark hours, I was blown away! My eyes were misty at the end.
It’s absolutely the most brilliant creative book written of its kind ....
It became personal to me....looking back at my own journey- my own struggles - my own fight - my own growth - my own inner peace.
At one point I kept thinking,
“No wonder it’s soooo hard for people to get well”.
“No wonder people repeat the same repetitive unwanted behaviors for years”.
I don’t usually write reviews on my iPhone from bed -
I’m usually not ‘this’ vague about the story either. But honestly it’s best to TAKE THIS BOOK IN....read each word - digest it!
Its possible to read this novel in different ways. Many ways to experience it.
For me... I related it to our little voices in our heads ... that little voice which always speaks to us.
The critical voice -the happy voice too -
I thought about the deeper evil spirits ... the personality splits.
I loved the metaphysical storytelling. At times it felt contemporary as any other novel - ha!!
Parents - family - struggles - coming of age
- interests - education - travel - sex - friends - but....
THIS IS NOT like ANY BOOK I’ve ever read!!!
It took me about 8% to understand what I was reading - what was going on...
It took me almost half way to get the DEPTS AND POWER of this novel...
And then the ending... OH MY GOSH....it’s soooo beautiful. It still wants to make me cry!!!!
“Freshwater” is FRESH!!! Sooooooooo GORGEOUSLY written....
It allowed me to distant myself - FROM - myself - and be incredibly thankful that I have made remarkable growth in the area of healing in my lifetime.
This is one of the most unique and symbolic transforming books I’ve ever read!!!!
Thank you Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and the brilliant author Akwaeke Emezi
Rating: really liked it
It’s not easy to persuade a human to end their life – they’re very attached to it, even when it makes them miserable, and Ada was no different. But it’s not the decision to cross back that’s difficult; it’s the crossing itself.Akwaeke Emezi’s
Freshwater is a novel of layers that do not always nicely overlap; in fact, the pieces often seem to not fit together at all. It is a novel born from trauma and emotional paroxysms, a read that erupts with them throughout. You have to peel back the layers to get to what Emezi has laid underneath, to find the gems, to find the hidden well of pain and sentiment offered here, and that may not be a satisfying journey for many readers.
Freshwater is the story of Ada, a young Nigerian woman with a fractured self, or multiple personalities, due to the gods who have mistakenly taken root in her body and mind. It is a dark novel portraying the malevolence within us – that darkness at the very deepest depths of us that we hope to never have to witness of ourselves or in others. It is a novel that portrays the psychological effects of such darkness and emotional violence. When Ada comes into adulthood and leaves her splintered home for a new existence in a Virginia college, a traumatic sexual experience further shatters her mind and her multiple personalities are born. Ada fights a battle between herself, her other selves and her God she left behind, a battle to regain her equilibrium that veers her onto a dangerous course of self-destructive behavior. A path of bloodshed, tears and an equal dose of sexual trauma and exploration. Ada fights with herself, realizing something is wrong. She wants a change but her other personalities refuse to let her go.
Let me tell you now, I loved her because in the moment of her devastation, the moment she lost her mind, that girl reached for me so hard that she went completely mad, and I loved her because when I flooded through, she spread herself open and took me in without hesitation, bawling and broken, she absorbed me fiercely, all the way; she denied me nothing. I loved her because she gave me a name.Freshwater was a novel that took a lot of patience for me to read. If you’re a reader who clings to continuity, who needs progressive character development to follow the path a protagonist’s life, or a reader who is in the least bit squeamish, this will likely prove to be a difficult read for you. Not an unworthy read – but a difficult one. The narrative leapt back and forth in time with new personalities and overlapping stories already told being retold differently. This book was a collage, a kaleidoscope, a reflection of a splintered self. Given the subject matter, the shattered quality of the narrative is understandable but at times arduous to read.
It was hard for me to fully connect with
Freshwater when the moments of truth, heartbreak and the demise of entire relationships in Ada’s life were narrated, not fully shown in action. Emezi’s debut novel is more about the relationship between Ada and her other selves –internally—than it is about her outward experiences in the world. (view spoiler)
[(For example, though we follow her through college and beyond, I have no idea what career she worked or if she even held a job at all. There was little to no mention of these small intricacies that paint a broader picture of the narrative for the reader.) This was not always a convincing examination or an immersive portrayal of the events in Ada’s life. Whole story lines just ended, never to be resolved. (hide spoiler)] It wasn’t enough for me, though some parts of the novel were absolutely gripping, and there were some lovely lines scattered throughout.
He wanted to pretend he was somehow better than he knew he was; he wasn’t ready to throw himself into sin. Humans find it easier to just lie and lie to themselves.However, in those neglected moments (which is probably why the book is relatively short) the novel loses its soul and misses opportunities.
Other qualms:
The quote headings at the start of each chapter made no sense to me in the context of the story. Often, they made no sense to me at all though I got the feeling that they were Nigerian sayings. And I had too many
WTF moments here because of the haphazard way life events and realizations were thrown into the narrative, no build-up, just dumped. I found myself reading whole passages and thinking,
Where did this come from – outta thin air? That was the main issue I had with this novel: there was no real character development aside from Ada and Ewan, just a series of narrations and events.
I also never understood the title of the book. There was a reference to it at the end of the novel, but I found it to be too cryptic and unclear, so I still have no idea what it was trying to convey, why it was the namesake of the book. Because of this, I had the noteworthy experience of loving and hating
Freshwater. There were moments where I couldn’t wait to turn the page and others where I skimmed past the incoherence of the We. Because of that,
Freshwater’s dazzling and dreadful moments condensed down into a grade of 3 stars overall. ***
*I received an advance-read copy of the book from the publisher, Grove Press, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Rating: really liked it
Forceful and harrowing,
Freshwater follows Ada, a young Nigerian girl, as she comes of age while contending with multiple personalities and prolonged trauma. The nonlinear storyline tracks Ada as she endures a dysfunctional upbringing in Nigeria only to come into close contact with a series of violent men in America as a precocious college student; it's told from the perspective of a host of spirits called ogbanje, who occupy the protagonist's body and exert strong control over her actions. In lyrical prose Emezi brings to life a talented but troubled mind, plagued by malevolent spirits who seek solace in disorder. Incredibly imaginative, and well worth checking out and revisiting over the years.
Rating: really liked it
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!
fulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that i bought in hardcover and put off reading long enough that it is now in paperback.this is a fucking terrific book.
now that that’s out of the way: a brief digression with two lessons at its core. one for authors about how they should never let a ‘bad’ review discourage them, and one for readers about how sometimes the wrong book can lead you to the right one.
i recently read emezi’s soon-to-be-released YA novel Pet, which has gotten a ton of gushing prepub attention, and many five star reviews on here. i thought it was
fine but not my kind of great, so i gave it three stars, which is a perfectly good and respectable rating. i know some authors who get all dispirited over their three-star ratings (and to be clear—i am not suggesting that emezi is one of them), but to me, three stars means anywhere from okay to pretty good but just not my kind of great. but, and here’s where it’s the readers’ turn to pay attention: i bought Freshwater the day it came out because it seemed to be so exactly my kind of great; dark and mythical and fierce, but then life and other books got in the way and i never got around to reading it. so after being only medium about Pet, i finally decided to read Freshwater, to see if i was right about my own tastes, and here we are.
this book is ferocious and fast-paced and under 300 pages, but there’s an emotional
weight to it that requires you to consciously stop yourself from tearing through so you can slow down and appreciate it. the writing is beautiful and the ‘what’ of it is a multilayered mindfuck which suggests several equally satisfying interpretive conclusions that, due to the stylistic decisions, do not—oddly—conflict with each other or cancel each other out.
at its most cliffs notes, it's about identity and the divided self. whether that division is the result of a nonbinary gender identity, mental illness, psychic fracturing as a PTSD-related coping mechanism, or just—you know—a bunch of pesky ogbanje inhabiting your human skin alongside you, is a distinction—not
irrelevant, necessarily, just that it all looks pretty similar from the outside—an inconsistency of behavior, a fluid sense of self.
on the inside, it’s incredibly psychologically dislocating and their writing really conveys the feeling of being caged in the human body with an ‘other;’ it’s claustrophobic, where ada is at times helpless, at times complicit or grateful for someone/thing else taking over the demands of the body, even when it is used in a self-destructive manner.
it’s ambiguous, symbolic, metaphorical, deeply distressing. the interpretation is as fluid and chaotic as anything else in the book, including its writing style, which reminded me a lot of God Head; a book that was so vividly able to replicate the inner landscape of a mental disorder.
this one plays rough; there is a lot of trauma in these pages: cutting, eating disorders, sexual assault and abuse, depression, suicide, etc.
the idea of cutting as a means of making blood sacrifices to supernatural entities, scars serving as physical evidence of devotion, was not something i have seen explored elsewhere and was particularly powerful and oddly lovely:
We understood. It is like we said: when gods awaken in you, sometimes you carve yourself up to satisfy them.there’s an emphasis on the body throughout, on the idea of transformation—of cutting skin, hair, (view spoiler)
[removing unwanted breasts (hide spoiler)], of starving it down to size, on letting it explore its sexuality with different genders and through experiences motivated by love, by hatred, curiosity, boredom; the soft fragile shell of the human body battered by the appetites of gods.
it’s a scenario with so much promise, and one that i remember being excited by in anne rice’s The Tale of the Body Thief, which conceptual potential ended up being squandered in what was basically boring erotica. here, it’s gorgeous and cruel and profound.
love love loved it.
here is a thing i wrote about it for a project in which i participated, which is pretty much what i said about it here, only with all those capital letters people make you use when you’re being a professional person:
A compelling and oftentimes disturbing debut with autobiographical overtones in which trans, non-binary author Emezi borrows from African mythology to construct a narrative about identity and the divided self, using the inhabiting-spirits called ogbanje from their Nigerian homeland to mimic the claustrophobic experience of being just one of many entities contained within a human shell, and not always the dominant one. The ogbanje gain and cede power, resulting in a fluidity in terms of the body’s gender identity, sexual orientation, and degree of promiscuity; an inconsistency of personality that presents as mental disorder or instability. It is a fever dream of a story, narrated by the different spirits crowding a young woman’s body, and it is emotionally moving and frequently jarring, not only for its fast pacing and trading-off control of the body and mind, but for the powerful and painfully triggering inclusion of scenes depicting self-harm, mental illness, eating disorders, cutting, sexual assault and abuse, and PTSD.
4 1/2 stars
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
This was absolutely stunning. From the very first page I knew I was in for something extraordinary and unlike anything I have ever read. This debut combines many things I adore in books: unconventional framing and unreliable narrators, a story that gets recontextualized constantly and kept me on my toes, a basis in mythology that informed but did not over-shadow the actual story, perfect sentence structure that packs an unbelievable punch, and so many more things that I am still struggling to adequately talk about.
This is Ada’s story, or more accurately Ada’s and her other personalities’ story. The first part is told in a we-perspective from her alternate personalities, brothersisters based in Nigerian mythology, that frame her story in what that means to them rather than her. The Ada, as she is called by them, then moves to the US where a traumatic events leads to a further fragmentation of self, Asụghara and Saint Vincent who will take over more and more. These two selves are even more different to her than the brothersisters were and tend to wreck havoc in her life. This description does not really do the book any justice because more than a straightforward narrative, the story unfolds forward and backwards with things happening (or not?) and is highly introspective. As I was wondering about the timeline, Akwaeke Emezi pulled the rug under me more often than I could count, leaving my head spinning and my heart broken.
I do not think I can do this book justice, but believe me when I say that this is an extraordinary achievement and unlike anything I read before. This will for sure stay with me and keep me thinking for months to come.
_________
I received an arc of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Grove Press in exchange for an honest review.
You can find this review and other thoughts on my blog.
Rating: really liked it
“The world in my head has been far more real than the one outside—maybe that’s the exact definition of madness, come to think of it.” <
For much of Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater I didn't know what was happening, but it was absolutely amazing! As strange as it sounds, the book deals with suicide, self-harm, rape and the mental health of the main character, Ada, from a non-human centered perspective. Instead, it is narrated from the perspective of gods or spirit selves who merge with Ada after she is sexually assaulted.
I read an interview of Emezi to try to gain some perspective (something I'm still in definite need of as I try to write a review for this novel). Emezi calls the gods she describes as ogbanje, "children who die over and over again" while disputing the term possessed as a binary and inadequate way of looking at plural personalities. Says Emezi of her main character, "Ada is as a singular collective and plural individual."
Despite fantastical elements, Emezi means for this novel to be more like an autobiography. Says Emezi, "It’s an autobiographical novel – a breath away from being a memoir. There are chapters in there that are my journal entries which I copied and pasted. There are a couple of things about writing it this way: first, the things that people think are fictionalised are not fictionalised. Second, I wanted to make clear it was autobiography, otherwise it would be considered to be very fantastical. I wanted readers to be sure that it was not magical realism or speculative fiction. It’s what has actually happened! I’m using fiction as a filter for it." (Emezi's quotes are from a Guardian Interview published 20 October 2018 https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...).
There's so much in Freshwater to twist your mind around. The way the story is told is also fascinating. Given the themes and the approach Emezi uses, this novel will not appeal to some readers. However, Freshwater is a novel that I will read again and one I highly recommend!
Rating: really liked it
How to review this, how to review this............
The first 50 pages or so of this book were really tough for me. I felt like I was physically fighting the book, trying to wrestle it into submission. After the initial struggle, I fell into a somewhat uneasy rhythm with the story but I never quite managed to embrace it. I can appreciate it somewhat remotely as a very original and inspired work of art, but it stirs very little depth of feeling or emotion in me.
This seems to be an allegorical narrative about mental illness, sexual identity and other ways in which a person might feel "other." The story is narrated by various selves contained within Ada, who apparently suffers from multiple personality disorder. The selves express themselves as gods called ogbanje. They contend with each other inside Ada's mind, with other gods outside of Ada that they refer to as "brothersisters," and with Ada herself. It's a funky scene, starting with Ada's birth in Nigeria to her adulthood in the US.
The writing is very dense and lofty - well written and imaginative for sure, but tedious at the same time. It just all felt too much, too much, too much.
I'd rate this as a 3.5, but am rounding down because, for me, it was more chore than pleasure.
Don't let my lukewarm review stop you from reading this book; it has gotten stellar reviews from my most trusted Goodreads friends. Sometimes books just don't speak to you, no matter how skillful the execution and the talents of the writer.
Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for an ARC of this novel. My review, however, is based on the hardcover version.
Rating: really liked it
5★ DEBUT!
“Dedication
To those of us
with one foot
on the other side."
“By the time she (our body) struggled out into the world, slick and louder than a village of storms, the gates were left open. We should have been anchored in her by then, asleep inside her membranes and synched with her mind. That would have been the safest way. But since the gates were open, not closed against remembrance, we became confused. We were at once old and newborn. We were her and yet not. We were not conscious but we were alive—in fact, the main problem was that we were a distinct WE instead of being fully and just HER.”Outstanding, mesmerising, poetically macabre and believably unbelievable. “The Ada”, as her captive spirits refer to her, is never alone. Her constant mental companions are spirits which should have been able to possess and influence her and then come and go at will, through the gates, across the bridge.
But not these mischievous, evil beings. The gods closed the gates behind them, so they lead The Ada into all sorts of trouble, both in Nigeria where she was born, and which has a tradition of
ogbanje possessing children, and in the US when her family migrates.
The ogbanje are reminiscent of the scary faeries at the bottom of the garden (Ireland’s Little People who steal children and some adults and leave changelings in their place), the witches of the witch trials, poltergeists, and malevolent voodoo spirits. She befriends a girl familiar with the voodoo traditions, too.
Ada grows up, and a little like the well-known The Three Faces Of Eve, has a split personality, influenced not only by the first two WE who were born with her, but also by a wild and naughty girl, Asughara, who is "born" when Ada first has sex. A real troublemaker, but sometimes Ada enjoys the excuse to cut loose.
Speaking of cutting, she does that, too, “feeding” her demons, as it were. The only way they can enjoy more lives is to escape this life and cross back over, as they were supposed to do.
But remember? The gates closed behind them, so you know what that means? Who’s the bridge? Their “host” body, that's who, and while Ada/Asughara bounces from lover to anorexia to psychiatric ward and back again, they all have conversations with her, and they may even hug her somehow. Sometimes she feels safest "inside" with them.
She survives the American college experience, the club scene, pubs, you name it. She/they have an active social and love life and don’t miss much!
It’s a wonderful read and I found it absolutely compelling.
I especially enjoyed this author’s thank you to award-winning Nigerian author, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie:
“Chimamanda Adichie, for the Farafina Creative Writing Workshop and the ripples from that. For that moment when I started to tell you about the book and you tilted your head, looked at me, and said, ‘Ah, so you’re an ogbanje.’”Emezi obviously got it right. AND THIS IS A DEBUT!!!
Thanks to NetGalley and Grove Press for the review copy from which I’ve quoted, so quotes may be changed.
This isn't due for publication until February 2018 but is available on NetGalley until then, so I’m posting my review early to encourage other reviewers to have a look.
UPDATE: https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/writer...
Rating: really liked it
4 fresh, imaginative stars to Freshwater! The most creative book I’ve read this year! 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
I have read nothing like Freshwater before. It is hard to categorize. It is literary fiction, but what else? Magical realism? Mysticism? The author noted at the end that this was her spiritual book, so I will go with spiritual literary fiction.
I went with the literal flow while I was reading. Freshwater could be murky, even incoherent, at times. Ada was born in Nigeria, a difficult baby with a “fractured self.” What transpired is hard to describe but as Ada grew up, the selves within her grew stronger and more powerful. Ada took the backseat, while her alternative selves were in charge, and her life became dangerous and volatile.
I do not want to spoil anything, so I am keeping this review brief. This is a novel, the layers, the writing, you have to experience for yourself. Keep your expectations loose, your mind open. If you enjoy gorgeous prose with profound messages of healing, hope, and truth, Freshwater is a most worthy read.
Thank you to Akwaeke Emezi (I’m eagerly awaiting your next wondrous work!), Grove Atlantic, and Netgalley/Edelweiss for the complimentary copy.
Rating: really liked it
It's hard to talk about something that has no precedent. Freshwater is utterly unique, and the result is breathtaking. It's a dark, sensual, and thoughtful novel about a young woman coming to terms with and accepting the multiple identities that define her.
The details of Ada's life - raised in Nigeria, relocated to the U.S. for college - are only an elemental framework for what is ultimately an introspective story. The majority of this book is narrated by a chorus of Ada's selves - conceptualized as Nigerian ogbanje - until a traumatic assault in college causes two of these selves to take shape, as Asụghara and Saint Vincent.
What I found so stimulating about this novel is that it challenged a lot of my conceptions about health and identity, particularly in how these are often so heavily informed by western culture. The perceived objectivity of psychology is something I've always found comforting and taken for granted, but with this book, I'm reminded of the significance of the relationship between culture and identity. Steeped in Igbo folklore, Freshwater chronicles Ada's journey (and Emezi's, as the book is informed by a lot of autobiographical elements) in a way that's challenging, unexpected, and beautiful.
Emezi's prose is so assured and lyrical it's hard to believe this is a debut. This is an author to watch and a novel that absolutely everyone should read.
Thank you to Netgalley, Grove Press, and Akwaeke Emezi for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
You must study the pattern of the shattering before you can piece it back together.
Freshwater is an exploration of how one must acknowledge the mixing of their realities to find peace with themselves. Following Ada, who has multiple gods contained within her, this brilliantly-written little novel goes into the point of view of first her younger gods, and then one specific god within her, Asugara.
So. I
loved this book, from its engaging writing to its incredible character building. But I think to explain why it resonates so strongly, you need to unpack the themes.
Asugara’s purpose is as a living embodiment of Ada’s trauma: she is the strength, or so she thinks, to Ada’s complicated outside. “We’re the barrier between you and madness”, Asugara tells Ada, and on some level this is real: when she pops forth, she finds an Ada broken, an Ada who she must save. Ada crafts Asugara to protect her from trauma. Asugara, in turn, turns to hypersexuality and destructive behavior as a means of escaping trauma.
For Ada, it is much easier for her to hide behind a persona, who guards her from trauma, than to relearn intimacy. Asugara serves as another manifestation of her hate for herself. Ada, too, clearly understands the role Asugara has played in helping her trauma: “You had to exist. I wasn’t ready”.
After all, was I not the hunger in Ada? I was made out of desire.
Yet Ada’s dependence on Asugara also has elements of codependency. “I don’t think anyone else will want me without you… I’m the damaged and broken one; you’re the bright and shiny one. Who are they going to love more?” And as multiple selves, she cannot fully give of herself. When Ewan finally lets go of his love for control, ready to craft an actually committed relationship with Ada, Asugara responds “you’re not yours to give.” This time, it is not a joy to say the cutting thing: the knowledge that “all those parts she wanted to give, the parts that would complete the love they had—all those parts were gone”. It takes Asugara years to know the truth, that “keeping her walled off from Ewan killed any chance they had at making it out together”. Keeping one side of Ada, it is clear, is not the solution.
Yet Ada’s darker self is not herself without feeling, without need to be loved. Yshwa’s big moment to Asugara is a proclamation that “I’m not ashamed of you… you know I love you”. Asugara flinches in response. She is Ada’s invulnerable side: she is not ready to be loved. But her vulnerability exists, too. When Ada begins to break free from her influence and suggests therapy, telling Asugara that she cannot continue to punish others, Asugara’s response is a tearful scream: “Were we not innocent enough to be spared?”. Indeed, as the novel continues, it becomes clear that she has been hurting others because she, herself, has been hurt.
I didn’t have anyone to hold me and now I don’t have anyone to kill me. You’d think he’d come through on at least one of these points.
As Emezi mentions in her interview, the concept of Ogbanje was oppressed under colonialism; black people, under colonialism, were forced to change identity, to commute self. Women and nonbinary people, likewise, have had their bodies commodified. To heal, we must come to terms with the multiplicity of identity we have developed through trauma, and move into the future as our whole selves: good, bad, and everything in between.
In an interview with The Rumpus, Emezi described their gender transition not as transitioning gender identity but “perhaps transitioning to an ogbanje, and what that looks like when you mix realities.” In the end, Ada’s freedom does not come of letting go of her divine parts: her freedom comes in recognizing them, and working with them. Ada’s way to saving is to piece herself back together, her godhood and all. In the final pages of the novel, she tells us: “I am my others; we are one and we are many”. She is infinity, a python.
TW: sexual assault, domestic abuse, disordered eating, attempted suicide.
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Rating: really liked it
I did an unusual thing before writing this review, I looked at what other people have said about the book. Usually I like coming to a book without any advance knowledge and reviewing it without any awareness of its reception, but this time I was curious. It is a hard book to pin down, I was still trying to figure out which words I could use to describe it. It turns out that seeing the reviews helped. I saw many people calling this book "magical realism" and I knew right away that this was wrong, at least for me. For me, this book feels literal not figurative, it is not supposed to be magical, it is simply supposed to be real. There are threads of mythology, threads of religion, but I don't see the book as fitting into "magical realism" at all. That gave me some clarity.
I also read a little bit of Emezi's writing and press around the book's release, and found some of their tweets where they lay out what the book is meant to be. And while it was interesting to see their point of view, ultimately as a reader you have your own experience with the book. I found their notes helpful, but I didn't use them as a decisive primer on how to interpret my experience.
Ultimately where I've come down is a bit muddled, my impressions are hazy, seen through smoke, and that feels just right. FRESHWATER is a book that uses Igbo religion to understand the way the self divides and fragments to protect itself. It is a book about trauma (and there is plenty of it) and what a person must do when you cannot be saved from it but you still must survive it. Ada is the primary body in the book but not the primary character, for Ada is an ogbanje. Ada exists not as one self but as several selves, and those selves negotiate with each other for control of her body to help her survive in the world. Ada is scarred by sexual assault so Asughara takes over for Ada's sex life. Saint Vincent feels determinedly un-feminine and eventually is able to define Ada's gender in a way that makes all the selves feel more whole.
Traditionally ogbanje are described as trickster spirits, reincarnated over and over again to torment mothers. But Emezi sees the ogbanje as something else, as several selves. While reading the book I decided to take the descriptions on their face, to see the selves as spirits or gods, and gradually figure out how it all fit together. I have a different view of it now that it's done, but I feel comfortable with my reading. There's something about seeing this too much as a metaphor for mental illness that rubs me wrong, that feels like it's imposing a lens the book doesn't want you to have. To me, this doesn't feel like a book that is using metaphor to describe multiple personality disorder or depression or gender dysphoria or suicidality, it feels like something else entirely and that's the reading that felt right to me.
The other selves do most of the narrating and their voices are astonishing and chilling. They view Ada with affection but also detachment, their remove from human endeavors would seem to hold you at a distance and yet I didn't feel that way at all. I was spellbound. This book is a true feat, with prose and structure and voice and concepts that all feel vivid and singular. It is both bold and quiet, it is shattering and soothing, I can't imagine I will read a more interesting book this year.
Rating: really liked it
A unique examination of painful adolescenceFreshwater is bewitching, bewildering and arresting in equal measure. The novel combines an almost stream-of-consciousness narrative style with the central conceit of the multiple narrators being spirits or deities that inhabit the protagonist's mind, forming a sort of plural identity. The result is an interesting perspective on a fractured sense of self. It is the reader's experience of this perspective, rather than the actual plot, that fuels the book. It's quite wonderful.
Rating: really liked it
Nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019"Freshwater" cleverly discusses the human mind by inquiring what actually constitutes "mental illness": To what degree is our inner fragmentation - the multitude of feelings and urges, the freedom to be many things - part of the human condition, and when does it become harmful and destructive? Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi employs African myths and Igbo spirituality in order to tell the story of Ada, who might suffer from bipolar disorder - or not. Or maybe the terms used by mental health professionals are not suitable to describe her experience at all?
Ada was prayed into existence by her parents and is possessed by gods - she is many:
"She was contaminated with us, a godly parasite with many heads, roaring inside the marble room of her mind." The god named Asughara is reckless and fueled by anger, but also protects Ada from the trauma that is tormenting her. Saint Vincent, on the other hand, is gentle and roaming her dreams (plus there are others, less mentioned ones, like Yshwa who seems to be a Christ-like figure). To live with the gods in one entity becomes more and more painful for Ada, she feels desperate, exhausted and
"sectioned" - at the same time, one wonders if the gods aren't right when they are saying
"we're the buffer between you and madness, we're not the madness".
Emezi touches upon many topics during her story, among them child abuse, rape, self-harm, alcohol, suicide, toxic relationships, and depression. Gender also plays a major role, with Ada identifying as a non-binary transgender person (
"She could move between boy and girl, which was freedom, for her and for us (the gods).") - just like the author who invented her. In many ways, this is a roman à clef (hint: Also pay attention to surgeries, tattoos, and dresses mentioned, among other things).
Some of the possible psychological reasons for Ada's painful multiplicity are given very late in the text, there are important hints at around 50 % and as late as 90 % of the book that feel a little like a deus ex machina (ha! sorry) - clearly, an author can choose to structure her narrative like that, but I am not a fan. My main criticism is very subjective though - I never really warmed to the text, and I wasn't invested in the story. The whole novel is a fragmented, highly constructed experiment in which gods speak in very detached, abstract voices. Does this make sense poetically? Absolutely. I didn't enjoy reading it though.
But I clearly see how people could love this book and admire Emezi for her inventive, edgy story that dares to be ambiguous, peculiar and challenging.
Rating: really liked it
"“The first madness was that we were born, that they stuffed a god into a bag of skin.” 25 pages into this book, I was ready to DNF it. I told myself I'd stick with it until page 50 though I dreaded trudging my way through 25 more pages. Well!! By page 50 I was utterly entranced. Holy crap was this a good book! It is the story of Ada, a young Nigerian woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (though the book never diagnoses her). The story is told through her alter personalities, and is an accurate portrayal of the fractured ego. It shows the strength of the person for whom the self shatters into many. Just as the sapling that bends with the wind is the one that survives, sometimes in order to survive childhood trauma, the strong mind has to bend so that the self can endure.
Freshwater captures that survival tactic so skillfully, the voices of the others, the insistence that only they can protect the body and self. Indeed, they must materialize because there is no one else to protect the child and that is what they do, even once the child is grown.
The prose in
Freshwater is glorious, it is song, it is poetry. Excruciating in its beauty. It is metaphysical and allegorical. It is captivating and intense. It explores not just the alternate selves, but also the need for self mutilation and the feeling of strength and control gained by denying the body food. It explores sexuality and gender. It is not a long novel and yet it is powerful. Akwaeke Emezi is brilliant and I cannot praise this book highly enough.
