It was heavy, it was hard, it was good, it was relatable. This was such an amazing story, especially for a debut novel. I felt so connected to Maddie throughout the book. I was rooting for her, smiling for her, crying for her and laughing for her. I felt all the emotions with this one. I so appreciate that this felt like an adult coming-of-age story. This was about a girl in her mid-twenties finding herself and figuring out life and I wish there were more books like this one out there. Life and family are messy and it's not all magically solved when people hit adulthood.
This was so impactful in so many small ways. It didn't hit you over the head with any of its messages but each one was still so well delivered. I'II be thinking about this one for a long time.

"Maame" is a name Maddy's mother calls her because in her native Ghana it means woman, or mother. It's supposed to be a term of endearment but Maddy hates it because it seems her mother has pressured her all her life to be the grown up in the family while mom is off on long trips to her homeland. Maddy's older brother has moved out and she has to live at home taking care of their infirm father. Maddy has little money of her own, but the mom and brother still make her pay for more than her share of things and loan them money. She's twenty-five years old and really hasn't started living her own life yet. When she finally gets to move out and experience what most her age went through years ago--new friends, lying boyfriends, sex, money problems, and a challenging job--she is faced with uncertainty and depression . As she grows and matures, one can't help but cheer her on and anticipate her new life.

Jessica George did an amazing job here on her debut. I was thankful for a comp ebook copy from the publisher through NetGalley; but I chose to listen to the audiobook instead, which was quite well done.

Loved this story! Everything about Maame - her struggle to care for her father, finding her voice, finally living instead of sleep walking through life will resonate with so many.

I am so late to the hype on this but all I think I need to say is that is it absolutely worth it. What a beautiful coming of age story. Go read it!

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

Maame by Jessica George is a fresh coming-of-age novel. Such a fantastic debut novel. This is one of the first novels I’ve read where the main character is a caregiver for her father with late-stage Parkinson’s disease. I work with people with Parkinson’s disease. I felt this book did well describing the condition and how it can impact the person and the family. I did need to pause reading because it was triggering for me as I was reading it around the anniversary of my father’s sudden passing. I highly recommend this book and audiobook. It was narrated very well. TW: loss of a parent.

Thank you, St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio, for my gifted copies.

QUICK TAKE: loved this coming-of-age story of a British-Ghanaian woman who finds herself at an intersection in her life and must take control of what is most important to her in the wake of the death of her father. Powerful, emotional, funny. An easy favorite of 2023 so far!

Maddie (aka Maame to her family) lives in London with her father with Parkinson’s while her mother spends most of her time in Ghana. When her mother finally returns home, Maddie can move out and start to live her life without worrying about her father’s care. I’ve seen so many rave reviews of this one, but unfortunately I didn’t love it. A lot of that is more about me as a reader than about the quality of the book. On one hand, Maddie’s father’s illness hit very close to home, and her grief, which was well-written, was beyond devastating to read. I had to put the book down at times because it was more than I could handle, so I would urge caution if you have anxiety or triggers around parental or familial illness. On the other hand, a lot of her coming of age was difficult for me to relate to, maybe because I’m old enough that I’m too far removed from that stage of life. As far as the book itself, my biggest complaint is that it felt too heavy handed - basically anything that could have gone wrong in Maddie’s life did. I also wanted Maddie to get better mental health support. While this wasn’t a book for me, a lot of people have loved it, so if you want a devastating, messy, coming of age story, it may be worth picking up Maame. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

⭐️⭐️
IDK what all the hype is about with this book. I struggled to finish. There were variety of topics such as caring for a parent, racism, peer pressure etc. I felt there was a lot going on for one book and those topics where being forced. It was all over the place and not solid. Thank you NetGalley and St.Martins Press for ARC read in return for my honest opinion.

The back cover literally says “the debut everyone is talking about” and scrolling through your Instagram feed has likely already confirmed that, and it is for good reason. I am beyond impressed that this is a debut novel. @jessicabgeorge wrote a book that is raw, authentic and serious but never felt overwhelmingly heavy or preachy. It is very much character driven over plot which is almost always my preference when it comes to contemporary fiction because you feel invested in their lives as you read along. Our MC, Maddie, has spent so much of her life focused on pleasing those around her and we get to see her explore what life might look like if she works on loving herself as fiercely as she loves others. This is such a moving book that I think will resonate with many people! I do want to point out that I think when we hear moving pertaining to a book we automatically assume heavy and this remains very lively throughout. I wish the ending had just a bit more to it and then it would’ve been a 5-star read for me.

Overall, Maame is interesting and an enjoyable read. As far as debuts go, this was a great start and I cannot wait to see what else Jessica George surprises us with in the future.

Maddie, our protagonist, is a British-Ghanian women in her 20's. I love stories from immigrant daughters, especially one that is coming-of-age.

While Maddie does depict a lot of her Ghanian culture in a negative light, I can see why she does so. It fits in with her experience in life so far: she is sheltered and wanting more, and so it is fitting that she associates all she knows negatively. I did hope that towards the end we would get more of a character arc where she can distinguish between the positive and negative but the story falls short in that.

Maddie's inner dialogue is pretty funny, even through her absurd dependence on google, but hey, modern times right? She's also not perfect, and this is a huge strength of the book. Maddie is shown to be intelligent and dutiful and on the flip side she is a push-over and gullible, a dichotomy that makes sense, in general, but can sometimes be frustrating since she is 25 years old. But I have to remind myself that she is lacking in so many experiences that of course she is like this. The frustration with Maddie made her feel even more real.

This book is being marketed as Women's Fiction, not as the Contemporary Romance that it is. Therefore, I am reviewing it as Women's Fiction which is usually considered as having a more literary feel.

At this point in my ten years of book blogging and reviewing, I am beyond rating books based partially on subject matter because there are plenty of fabulous POC and diverse authors out there writing high quality novels. This author isn't one of them. It's funny because she describes her own writing in this story...

"'It was beautiful and raw and written so . . .' Kenny smiles. 'Sparsely.' 'It’s called economical language.' 'Aha! And who coined that phrase, dear Madeleine?' Kenny asks. 'A group of actual readers or her publicity team who couldn’t think of another way to say: my writer lacks a little imagination.'"

The book also hints that this is what most women prefer to read and men are just being lofty.

"Economical language" writing, the first cousin of "all vibes, no plot" writing; making plain unskilled writing "trendy" so basically anyone can get published, and maybe even get enough social media hype to become a bestselling author.

This title is an example of a book written solely for salability. Books like this are getting published more and more. Too many characters with severe mental health problems and no resolution/remedy, check. A lot of LGBTQ content for no other reason than being able to sport a LGBTQ hashtag, check. Bad parents, check. An overload of obscenities, check. Cheesy sex scenes, check. Supporting and legitimizing 21+ year olds acting and interacting like teenagers, check. Painfully simple vocabulary for quick reading, check.

One thing I really loathed about this author is she is a fence sitter writer. She writes about controversial subjects in a way that both sides can think she's supporting their opinion. The MC rarely made her feelings known. This broadens a book's relatability and therefore, salability with no effort required.

The main character is a college educated twenty-five year old and her friends are similar in age and education, but they make decisions like high schoolers and interact like teenagers. Authors need to stop normalizing this. Reading about the relationships with her flatmates was like reading about sixteen year olds at sleep-away camp, and her sexual escapades were immature as well. There was also quite a bit of high school "do you think he's ugly" type talk, and happiness/"depression" was many times based on whether the character had a boyfriend or not.

There was some acceptable representation of depression and anxiety/panic attacks, but the majority of it was skewed more than a little bit. The author gave the impression that "real depression" needs to be based on something in most cases, like the death of a family member, or loss of a job; which is not true. And then to confuse things even more... some of the MC's "depression" was in reality just sadness and normal grief, and her actual depression symptoms were passed off as sadness. One of the flags for clinical depression is when the depression is not related to any life events or environment. It was irresponsible of the author to send mixed messages like this. There was also a description of manic depression being presented as normal everyday happiness/sadness feelings.

I won't even go into the misrepresentation of a gynecological disorder described in the story.

I loved this book so much that I've been trying to write a review of it for well over a month and keep coming up short. It was beautifully written, so funny, so smart, so moving without being maudlin - it was perfect.

I feel like anyone who doesn't love this book is deeply confused.

Such a indepth family drama. This book had it all. love, family, grief, growth, self discovery and second chances.

Now, don't get me wrong, there were some characters in this book (who are part of the main characters family) who I down right LOATHED. I mean let me get this out right away. Maddie's Mother?? Oh come on, it was like she expected some sort of award for finally showing up and taking care of her husband (who has parkinson's by the way) given that Maddie has been taking care of him for years.
For the first time in her entire life, Maddie is "free" so to speak and can finally experience things that most 25 years have already experienced. (wearing make up for the first time, drinking etc). But of course, things don't go exactly how Maddie thinks they will.

There were part of the book, that drove me a little crazy, but over all I really loved this book. It took a close look at families and how dsyfunctional they really can be.

Thank you so much to #NetGalley and St. Martin for the ARC

This was a wonderful debut novel about a young woman who had to grow up quickly and become the caregiver for her father who had Parkinson's disease. She is struggling with her identity as a young adult and how to form relationships amongst friends and also lovers. I loved hearing the thoughts inside Maddie's mind and how she grew to understand what love means. Five Big Stars for me!!!

I loved some parts of this book and then others felt so disjointed to me. Sometimes Maddie's character felt like two different people based on the maturity and what she was asking of google

great book and such great characters. I enjoyed the mystery and some romance. I also enjoyed the journey of the characters. I didn't know what to expect with this book but I enjoyed it .

Maddie’s life is not fully her own. She is taking care of her father while her mother has gone off to Ghana and her brother is busy trying to live his own life. Maddie is in a job that she isn’t fully happy in and is walking around on eggshells with her boss. She rushes home to take care of her dad every night after work, so her social life really isn’t there. Her mother continually asks her for money.

I really enjoyed the story telling in this book and what was going to happen. Would Maddie finally start living her life?

Thank you #Netgalley for the advance copy

When I read this over the summer I knew it was going to be big - and now it’s a #readwithjenna and @bookofthemonth pick!

Maddie is a Ghanaian millennial living in London, working at a dead end job and carrying for her father. When her overbearing mother returns from Ghana, Maddie needs to balance her parents’ expectations with her desire to find herself and what she really wants from life. I really enjoyed this! Thanks to @stmartinspress for the #gifted copy!

Thanks so much for the review copy. I can see why this is a book club favorite. Thanks again for the review copy.