FRESHWATER by Akwaeke Emezi

This book is truly weird, and I do not mean that in a good way.  The book is about a young woman named Ada who moves from Nigeria to the U.S. at 16 to go to college.  She is mostly cut off from family and friends, and her body is inhabited by “gods,” including one in particular that leads her body into a number of sexual encounters.  The gods also serve as narrators, and I was never sure if Ada had a multiple personality disorder or whether she was possessed.  Either way, the book left me wondering if Ada had a soul apart from the demons.  She certainly has no trouble finding lovers, but otherwise, this novel does not have much of a plot, and Ada’s character, as I said, is difficult to distinguish from those of the gods residing in her mind.  I wish I had something good to say about this book, other than the fact that the writing is good if you can overlook the grammatical errors.  Near the end we find that some events in Ada’s childhood may have contributed to her mental distress, but I felt that the author added this information more as an excuse and an afterthought than as a substantive contributor to Ada’s issues.  If, in fact, the voices in Ada’s head are actually related to mental illness, I don’t think the cause is necessarily that cut and dried, nor is the resolution ever achieved.  Basically, I did not understand this book, and therefore I was unable to glean any kind of meaning, education, admiration, or pleasure from it.