Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi
Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi
7 Rating(s)
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Freshwater

Author: Akwaeke Emezi

Narrator: Akwaeke Emezi

Unabridged: 6 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/13/2018

Categories: Fiction, Psychological


Synopsis

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asughara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves—now protective, now hedonistic—move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

About Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Death of Vivek Oji, which was a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the PEN/Jean Stein Award; Pet, a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, a Walter Honor Book, and a Stonewall Honor Book; Freshwater, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize; Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, which won the 2022 ALA Stonewall Prize for Best Nonfiction Book; and most recently, Content Warning: Everything, their debut poetry collection, and Bitter, their second young adult novel. Selected as a 5 Under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation and featured on a Time cover as a Next Generation Leader, they are based in liminal spaces.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Felice on February 12, 2020

It’s not easy to persuade a human to end their life – they’re very attached to it, even when it makes them miserable, and Ada was no different. But it’s not the decision to cross back that’s difficult; it’s the crossing itself. Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater is a novel of layers that do not always nicely......more

Goodreads review by karen on June 25, 2022

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!! fulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that i bought in hardcover and put off reading long enough that it is now in paperback. this is a fucking terrific book. now that that’s out of the way: a brief digression with two lessons at its core. one for authors a......more

Goodreads review by PattyMacDotComma on February 22, 2024

5★ DEBUT! “Dedication To those of us with one foot on the other side." “By the time she (our body) struggled out into the world, slick and louder than a village of storms, the gates were left open. We should have been anchored in her by then, asleep inside her membranes and synched with her mind. That w......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on February 12, 2018

It's hard to talk about something that has no precedent. Freshwater is utterly unique, and the result is breathtaking. It's a dark, sensual, and thoughtful novel about a young woman coming to terms with and accepting the multiple identities that define her. The details of Ada's life - raised in Niger......more

Goodreads review by el on August 30, 2024

allow us a moment to explain a few things. specifically, 240 pages of explanation. yes, there is a lot of that here. too much for me, i think. not nearly enough character interaction or genuine scene-writing. i was so immediately and viscerally enthralled with akwaeke emezi's prose that almost n......more