STORIES (7-12) The Thing Around Your Neck

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Genre: Short Story Collection

Published: The Thing Around Your Neck, 2009

Personal Rating: 2.5/5 average (eh)

Format/Narrator: Audiobook/Adjoa Andoh

(ss) Yearly Count: 34 - 39 

UGH! I have never done this before, but I'm going to use Wikipedia for descriptions of these stories due to my failing memory. I happened to listen to this audiobook in the car (7-12 anyway) and by the time I was able to write anything down, I was unable to remember. HA!

Wikipedia Descriptions:

7. "The Thing Around Your Neck" a woman named Akunna gains a sought after American visa and goes to live with her uncle; but he molests her and she ends up working as a waitress in Connecticut.

8. "The American Embassy" in which a woman applies for asylum but ends up walking away, unwilling to describe her son's murder for the sake of a visa.

9. "The Shivering" set on the campus of Princeton University, it concerns a Catholic Nigerian woman whose boyfriend has left her, finding solace in the earnest prayers of a stranger who knocks at her door.

10. "The Arrangers of Marriage" in which a newly married wife arrives in New York with her husband; and finds she is unable to accept his rejection of their Nigerian identity.

11. "Tomorrow Is Too Far" a young woman reveals the devastating secret of her brother's death.

12. "The Headstrong Historian" covers the life-story of a woman who believes her husband was killed by his cousins and is determined to regain the inheritance for her son through his education by missionaries.

There were only a few stories in this collection that kept my attention, so overall it was a disappointing book for me. Two of the six above were worthy of at least a 3.75/5, but the rest were 2.5/5 or lower. It could have been timing and/or the format, but it just didn't entertain me.