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I will always appreciate novels that succeed in western markets  with authentic, informative, and underutilized settings and cultures, especially so when the subject matter so boldly confronts the ceaseless colonial ideologies of the western world. In these aspects, Half of a Yellow Sun hits all the marks.

However, I found the prose, dialogue, character development, political theory, and plot structure to be tremendously underwhelming. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s writing possesses a blunt curtness that was intended, I imagine, to impart a cold and sobering realism upon the reader. For me, however, it encouraged apathy. The characters felt artificial in their conversations with one another, never saying more than a few words before the narration takes over again. Many of the characters will restate the same sentiment in the same way endlessly, as if their purpose is to embody one idea alone. A character’s soul-crushing grief is described in whole within the span of fifty pages as nothing more than red eyes and trips to the bar and is never addressed again. Children are forced into atrocious acts and experiences, and the resultant grief is described within two lines. We are told how socialism and nationalism will save the people of Biafra, but we are not told how. The timeline jumps around for no discernible reason.

While the book certainly sparked my interest in its subject matter, it fell short of providing me with the resources to properly engage with it. Biafra’s diplomatic and administrative problems were described briefly, but hardly expounded upon. The reader is much like the protagonists in that they are kept in the dark, uncritical.