Review of Maame by Jessica George

*Maame* by Jessica George (2023). Published by St. Martin’s Press.

As of late, I’ve been reading a ton of books by authors from Ghana and its diaspora. I really don’t know how this ended up happening with my life, but here we are! I’m just consuming a ton of content from African diaspora writers in general I feel like, which is interesting considering the coursework I’ve been taking at the graduate level this semester. If you’re new here: hi! I’m Ashley, and I’m a graduate student in an interdisciplinary program. So like this semester I’m taking a course called The Traveler, which is about travel, forced migration, and the literature of the African diaspora.

I also was interning at the Smithsonian this semester, which meant I was listening to a ton of audiobooks while I was sitting and getting my work done. I’d been wanting to read Maame for a hot minute before I ended up realizing the audiobook was available one day, so when my previous audiobook concluded its last few sentences, I went on Libby and checked out Maame.

I ended up listening to the book across multiple different days as I drove to school and did work. Here’s my review!

Split between two cultures and a tragedy, Maddie is struggling with her life.

As seen on that cute little header above, our protagonist in this novel is Maddie. She lives in London, and is the main person taking care of her father. He has late stage Parkinson’s disease, and her mother and brother basically don’t do anything to take care of the man in his final years. Maddie especially has a bone to pick with her mother, who seems to spend more time in Ghana than with her own family, making it the chance on her latest trip for Maddie to move out and begin to live her life.

At her job, Maddie is starting to struggle because she’s the only Black person in the room the vast majority of the time, and she’ll even be gearing up to prepare to lose that job as well after the first couple of chapters. So when she does move out after her mother returns, she decides to start doing all the things she’s never done before.

She gets a flat with some other girls, she goes out to drinks, and tries to date around, potentially finding the person that she might end up with in the long run. This serves a good chunk of the novel, and around the halfway point, tragedy strikes and Maddie has to gather her wits, dealing with emotions and things she never expected to have to deal with this soon.

I’d really describe this as a coming of age novel of sorts, except in one’s adult years. Maddie is going through all the motions of her life and is ready to take things to the next step, go outside of the comfort zone she has created for herself. What I especially liked is how the novel highlights what it is like to be a young Ghanaian British woman who’s working hard to support her family as well. She’s taking care of her father until she no longer can, and seeking out opportunities in publishing.

Overall Thoughts

I know I haven’t given a super in-depth summary for this novel, but I found it to be pretty straightforward when it came to the plot. The magic that comes with this kind of work is following the adventures of our protagonist, who is going through quite a bit even at the start of the novel. I found this to be an endearing, emotional read throughout because of it, as I genuinely grew attached to Maddie and what she was trying to do with her life throughout. Give it a chance if you haven’t read this one already!

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