Twice As Perfect is a story that does a great job of looking at the impacts and divides between different generations of immigrants, but the execution could still be better than it is. Onome centers her story around Ada, a child of immigrants from Nigeria to Canada. The Nigerian culture is very strong, and the family is part of a very close-knit community that maintains many traditions from their home country, while having sky-high expectations for their children that are being given a chance for a better life. This can be challenging for their children, including Ada. Her parents only consider careers like doctors, engineers and lawyers to be acceptable and this results in her older brother Sam being kicked out of the house and nothing but the highest standards for Ada. Which is great for Ada until it isn’t. They are rigid standards that she’s formed herself to, which makes her a pretty difficult person to be around – something that her partner in an art class points out to her when Ada decides that the class and the project is stupid and that she’ll likely have to do all the work because she’s the smarter, more driven person - without ever bothering to try and get to know Patricia. But the class opens up the opportunity to see her brother again, and it also exposes her to things she and her parents have closed her off to for years, which makes her question how much she really wants to become the lawyer her parents want her to be.
Even though Ada’s parents have good intentions, they go about it in a really awful way. Kicking her brother out and then refusing to explain the situation (or ever refer to him again) creates a horrible situation for a teenager still in the home. Getting angry because your kid wants to be a kid even though they’re meeting your expectations and following your rules is unrealistic. Never allowing your child to explore what they might be passionate about and disowning them when they go behind your back to do so is toxic. Onome shows the extremes of this in this story, and how wanting too much for your children can backfire spectacularly.
Ada for me was not a particularly likable character until late in the book. She’s so focused on balancing two sides of herself (Nigerian Ada and Canadian Sophie) and meeting parental expectations that she’s stuck-up, judgmental and rude to many of the people around her. The book feels like it needs a stronger emphasis on one particular storyline. This bounces between a debate competition, a wedding, reuniting with her brother Sam, exploring writing poetry of her own, and ultimately a confrontation between Ada and her parents. I wish Onome had toned the wedding storyline way down and focused on the dynamics between Ada and her family members instead. I’m guessing she made it such a large focus both to share wedding culture and that Nigerians can have their own celebrities, but it was too much of the book and the celebrity obsessions and shallowness were annoying to me.
Even though Ada’s parents have good intentions, they go about it in a really awful way. Kicking her brother out and then refusing to explain the situation (or ever refer to him again) creates a horrible situation for a teenager still in the home. Getting angry because your kid wants to be a kid even though they’re meeting your expectations and following your rules is unrealistic. Never allowing your child to explore what they might be passionate about and disowning them when they go behind your back to do so is toxic. Onome shows the extremes of this in this story, and how wanting too much for your children can backfire spectacularly.
Ada for me was not a particularly likable character until late in the book. She’s so focused on balancing two sides of herself (Nigerian Ada and Canadian Sophie) and meeting parental expectations that she’s stuck-up, judgmental and rude to many of the people around her. The book feels like it needs a stronger emphasis on one particular storyline. This bounces between a debate competition, a wedding, reuniting with her brother Sam, exploring writing poetry of her own, and ultimately a confrontation between Ada and her parents. I wish Onome had toned the wedding storyline way down and focused on the dynamics between Ada and her family members instead. I’m guessing she made it such a large focus both to share wedding culture and that Nigerians can have their own celebrities, but it was too much of the book and the celebrity obsessions and shallowness were annoying to me.