FRESHWATER by AKWAEKE EMEZI

   I recall sometime two years ago, whilst roaming the “streets of instagram”, I stumbled upon the cover art for this book and it somehow was relegated to the back of my head. Thinking about it, the book was yet to be released then. Fast forward to last year November, I see feeds about this book on one of my social media, I gloss over the post, remembering the book from sometime before. Once again, I don’t particularly go all out to search for this book. So, come December, I’m surfing the web and find this book staring me in the face once again. After coming across it for the third time now, I obviously couldn’t avoid it and went ahead to get it. As I had some other books I was reading, I didn’t get to reading it till January this year. Down to the actual review.

Overview

Note: I doubt an overview can give you enough insight into the happenings of this book but I’d go ahead nonetheless.
Ada is the second child and first daughter of a Nigerian (Ibo) father and a Malaysian mother, both of whom were in the medical profession. Her childhood is characterized by nightmares (which she gradually got a hold of), screaming fit and having her mother take up a job outside the shores of Nigeria, putting a strain on their family ties.
Ada gets done with secondary school and is sent over to the US by her mother to further her studies in Virginia, with her elder brother moving to Malaysia for similar reasons two years earlier. Her movement to new lands led to discoveries within her life and the birthing of two other personalities. And lest I forget, Ada is an ogbanje. She is, not by the reason of dying and returning severally to her family as other ogbanjes do but by being the human host of the beings (referred to as gods/brothersister in the book) that inhabited her body. The book is written from three view;
i) We: the beings (gods)
ii) Asughara: the beastself that broke free from the collective nature of the We. Taking charge of Ada’s body when situations called for it or when Ada pleaded for her to. She was a less innocent, less vulnerable and the IDGAF version of Ada. Tough through and through a majority of the times and rash at times.
iii) Ada: though the story is about her, more of it came from the previous two views.
   That as much as I can spill.

MY THOUGHTS
  After reading this book, a thousand and one questions were and still are nagging at my brain about the actual nature of ogbanjes but that is by the way. This is one of the most difficult books I’d review, oftentimes, I don’t read books with reviewing them in mind. If I get to think about the book even when I’m done with it or if it’s a genre new to me then, it is worth me reviewing. So, I read this book just wanting to see what it held between it’s pages and for a major part, I can say I wasn’t disappointed. I would like to refer to this book as an autobiography with hints of fiction (I can’t honestly tell how much of it is fiction but the basis of the story is a real one). The style of writing is a unique one considering how she seemed to involve everything but yet not everything about everything.
  I found it difficult establishing a timeline for the happenings in the book though. Yunno, how you can tell how many years, months or days the story span, for this, I had a difficult time keeping track of time and gave up all together at some point to just enjoy the story itself. There are varying transitions in the book and if you don’t hold on tight, you might get lost somewhere in the story. On a whole, the story was passed across effectively. I like that she broached over other issues, from Ada’s seperation from her husband and how badly it affected Ada to her trips to the therapists (to sort what she thought to be MPD) and psych doctors and when she almost committed suicide but for some reason hanging somewhere in the universe, she didn’t die. Tales of depression, shrinking away from her human self and even family at some point, and then friends that loved and stood with her through the whole 100 laps. Freshwater is a story of discovery and insight into some other realm and sure was crafted beautifully. Times when I wanted to walk away (leave the book), the interesting nature of the unknown (in this case, her being ogbanje and how it affects her life and relationships) made you return inspite of myself. I may not agree with everything within the book but, it is her story and I appreciate that. Real happenings make some of the best stories.

‘Mina

Sidenote:
   To the author, I didn’t think I would be able to pass this many words regarding this book owing to the deep and personal nature of the writings within. Thank you for the challenging read and a challenging/difficult review too. Thanks for letting us in on truths as you know them. Looking forward to more novels of equal or more intensity.