FRESHWATER by Akwaeke Emezi

(This review is originally posted on my Goodreads account)

I keep wavering on my rating, I think I'll set it as 3.5, but that might change.
This was a strange book and a difficult one to rate, let alone review. I also am aware that this is an autobiographical/semi-autobiographical (unsure exactly which one) novel. Which makes this a little more difficult to rate & review, honestly.

(There are probably spoilers ahead. Be warned)

TW: sexual assault; self-harm; child sexual abuse; physical abuse.


First of all, I want to forewarn you that I suck at reviews, and this one is going to be kind of all over the place. This was an intense book, and honestly, the first chunk, though my favorite, is kind of a blur at this moment in time.

There were some things that stuck out to me, that struck me as odd and took me out of the story, but I didn't take notes so I can't remember them. Oops.
There were some odd phrasings and sentences, which COULD have just been the format in which I was reading it. I checked this out of my library as an ebook and noticed the oddities, which made me check out the physical copy as well just to be sure. But some of the phrasings (none of which I can think of at this point in time, naturally) did take me out of the story, and I was unsure of who was speaking in some cases, which, given that there isn't a lot of dialogue in this novel to begin with, was amazing. It took away a little of my enjoyment, but I still liked the book.

As stated above, this was an intense book, but there were some areas that were messy and felt disjointed as a result; however, given what Ada was going through, it seemed as if the author may have been trying to imply the sensation of spiraling that Ada was most likely feeling. I'm not sure if the author was or wasn't attempting to do this, but if so, then they succeeded.

Some of the characters felt like they weren't fully developed, and though that could have just been telling of the Ada's mental state (...and my calling her "the Ada" was NOT intentional by the way lol) it felt odd, especially given how we were TOLD that Ada loved some of these characters, or was fond of them, yet we were never given the chance to SEE that.

I adored the first half of this book, devouring every word. That first half alone would have been a full 5 stars - more if possible. It was so interesting to read, and I loved the language that was used, the visuals. Something to note, however, is that despite Ada being the main character, we rarely see her POV.
Unfortunately, when Ashugara entered the picture in the second half and the "We" chapters became less frequent, the spark that captivated me in the first half seemed to fade. It was still a hard book to put down, but it was becoming tedious almost because Ashugara was so single-minded in her desires. And I did not like how it kind of devolved from this beautiful novel to sex. (It wasn't just sex, but it definitely was at the forefront for this last half.)
The final chapter did redeem it somewhat, and it felt like it came full circle, back to the chapters I liked.

There were also certain things that were mentioned that I would have liked to explore more, or at least to have SEEN. Some chapters would mention something offhanded, almost casually, and then move on very quickly, almost choppily.

Like I said above, Freshwater is a difficult book to review, and I don't think I did it justice. If I could sum it up, I would say that even though there were some sections that seemed to lose the spark that attracted me in the beginning, I absolutely did enjoy the majority of this book and will most likely re-read it in the future, if only to try to pick up on some things I'm sure I missed this time. If and when I do, I will try to take more notes. But these are my overall impressions after closing it for the first time less than half an hour ago.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. While it was different from what I typically reach for, I was entranced the entire time I was reading it.