Becoming Abigail

Man two books in two weeks. I forgot what a pleasure it is to read.

The second book was a novella named Becoming Abigail, written by Chris Abani. I really have no recollection as to how I heard about this book. Probably some blurb from a pretentious observer piqued my attention, but I was the guy buying it in Barnes & Noble.

The book follows Abigail, a young African girl that finds herself in London. She looks amazingly like her mom, also named Abigail, who died in childbirth. Her father's depressed. Yeah this ain't exactly a story of hope and survival. Or maybe it is.

But Mr. Abani writes beautifully. The book doesn't have too much of a story. It is a novella. It's almost like a really detailed character study, and he alternates each chapter between the past and present helping us to understand this Abigail and her many idiosyncracies and motivations. The most amazing element of the book is the writing. Abani dispenses metaphors and descriptions that ooze with lyricism. At times it felt like I was getting nuggets of poetry within the story.

120 pages. Enjoyable. Reading is still in fact fundamental