Zikora-Book Review

 

“It’s funny how pregnancy is like body hair. We scrub and scrape

our armpits and upper lip and legs because we hate to have hair there.

Then we pamper and treat the hair on our heads because we love hair

there. But it’s all hair. It’s the wanting that makes the difference.”

–Zikora, Zikora, 2020.

   After reading that statement, did you laugh? Did you smile? Or did it cause you to think deeply?

I laughed, I smiled, I thought deeply. Because it is true, and it aptly, wittily describes the relationship between a modern day woman and pregnancy. When I got Zikora, I didn't really hesitate to read it, it rocketed to the top of my TBR(to be read) list. Although I hesitated a little, because every thing written by Chimamanda is amazing, and I was afraid a little tiny bit that I might be disappointed. I wasn't.

 Chimananda in Zikora explores Femininity, I say femininity and not feminism because Chimamanda put the spotlight on womanhood. The pain and pride of being a woman. How you have to hold pain in, beaten and ridiculed by nature. Taking processes to understand your body, having partners who don't even understand your body. Having to compete and work harder than most men because your law firm wants a female partner after years of not naming one a partner. Chimamanda explores, family ,love, Race,Religion, The African immigrant experience, Igbo culture, polygamy. Chimamanda has a beautiful way of writing so complexly simple. I like the way she sees things. She is familiar with her characters and it reflects in the way she writes,she doesn't have to labor too much on character development which involves dropping hints and the over used nervous ticks. She doesn't have to try too hard to make us familiar with the characters and it is beautiful. Zikora educated me as a writer and drew  me out of the most recent writer's block I was plunged into. Zikora made me feel femininity, and even though it will be years before I think about motherhood, I think it was mirrored perfectly to me through Zikora's character.

 My fingers are crossed for more books from Adichie.

  

  Published 2020, © Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Published by Amazon Original Stories.

30 pages.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the New York Times bestselling author of

the novels Purple Hibiscus ; Half of a Yellow Sun , which won the Orange

Broadband Prize for Fiction; Americanah , which won the National Book

Critics Circle Award and was a New York Times , Washington Post ,

Chicago Tribune , and Entertainment Weekly Best Book of the Year; the

story collection The Thing Around Your Neck ; and the essays We Should

All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen

Suggestions . A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.