The Thing Around Your Neck Paperback – June 1, 2010

Excellent! I really enjoyed these stories. Adiche is a wonderful storyteller and brings Nigerian culture and people to life. Her characters are memorable as are the stories that they tell.

This was the first of her books I have discovered and I couldn't put it down. My son read it at school and bought it for me for Christmas. She has an incredible ability to grip you in only a few simple pages and tells a whole tale in what might take a full novel for most authors. I hated when each story ended, as I was so taken with the characters, but got equally wrapped up in the next one just as quickly. This author is a gift.

Wasn’t sure what to make of the book but it was captivating and kept me tuned in. It’s like a stream of different stories linked together by a common theme. Definitely worth reading and highly recommended. The chapters are different stories about what could be real people navigating complex and traumatizing experiences. Some succeed and find hope, others fail and give up. The last chapter: the thing around your neck is by far my favorite. You can say it’s a companion to Achebe’s “things fall apart”. Above all, this is an easy read and the characters were believable and relatable. How Adichie finds the words and web of narrative imagery is beautiful. Although the abrupt end makes your craving for more.

There are books that I can’t help skimming, skipping few paragraphs here and there. Not Adichie’s. Even if I notice my eyes were not focusing - I get back to the book with full attention.I enjoy reading Adichie’s books, though after reading Americanah and this book - I started feeling slight frustration with her harsh depiction of American life and culture. “The trick was to understand, to know that America was give-and-take. You give up a lo but you gained a lot, too”. That’s not America, that’s everywhere. When you leave your village, your city, your country - you leave behind your past, heritage and sense of security. That applies to all foreigners. I understand it’s catchy and shocking to compare the cultures, in Adichie’s case - always diminishing America, but it is getting slightly old and annoying.

I really enjoyed reading the stories contained in this book.

I enjoyed these short stories. They provided insights to several aspect of Nigerian culture as it is juxtapose to the that of European culture.

This book is the 3rd one I've read by this author, and is a harrowing story, very well written in a style I find compelling. Why not 5 stars? My problem is in relating to Africa and its complicated cultural systems. I even find the characters names difficult to pronounce, which makes it hard for me to imagine them. Isn't that strange? I am obviously lacking all knowledge about the issues dividing the warring factions within this country, let alone the entire continent, all of which destroys its fluency. My fault, not the author's! At least it led me to do some reading up on African history. With this new found knowledge I will re-read it, and hopefully the background of political unrest will slot into place and provide the support I needed. And, if I spend a bit more on the audio version, I could finally hear those beautiful names pronounced correctly.

Each story in this book made me pause to think before moving on to the next story. I don't know if I have a favorite because I like all of them. They all evoked different emotions in me. For some reason I could resonate with most of the main characters in the story.I must say one of the stories was very dark. The one that talked about Nonso.I will read this book again.I wish some of them could be made into full novels. Like the arranged marriage and the American Embassy. I am also curious about Chinedu and what happened to him and Ukamaka....I am dying to read another collection of Chimamanda's short stories. She is brilliant!