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My Life as a Chameleon
Book Review
this book is incredibly moving and a story that young girls and women everywhere can relate to
The story begins with ‘Lily’ a young girl living in Nigeria with her father and mother. Being the youngest of 4 children she can’t help but feel indifferent. her siblings have grown up and moved out and despite Lily being at home with her parents she constantly feels ignored. Lily loves her mother, but there’s just something about her father that seems off. Mummy says that “he’s ill” but it seems to be more than that, then one day Lily came downstairs to witness something she would never forget, The incident.
Mummy was on the floor crying and Daddy had a look of blinding rage in his eyes, he was hurting her. From then on things wouldn’t be the same – Daddy was scary. Her mother thought it would be good for Lily to live with her brother Luke in Manchester for a while, it wasn’t, “it was hell”. Finally, the day comes for Lily to return back home, only to find her father sicker than he ever was…
A beautiful engrossing read, filled with heart wrenching anecdotes that will make a teen reader reminisce the tumultuous times of puberty and the struggles that came along with it. ‘My life as a Chameleon’ is a cleverly written debut of a young Nigerian girl’s struggles growing-up mixed raced in Nigeria. I found this book to be an extremely easy read with the diary entry style writing and fast paced chapters, this book is incredibly moving and a story that young girls and women everywhere can relate to.
About the Book
Lily is a sixteen-year-old, dual-heritage girl living in Manchester. But it is nearly five years since her father’s death, and she has returned to her birthplace in Nigeria to reunite with her mother and siblings for the anniversary.
In Lagos, Lily was the baby of her large family. The daughter of a Nigerian father and Irish mother, she lives in a dual reality: one where moments of bright colour and tenderness exist alongside a sense of danger just beneath the surface of her apparently idyllic life.
This is a tension that nobody dares speak out loud and it teaches Lily an early lesson: always blend in, try to be invisible. But the colour of her skin cannot be ignored and Lily does not feel that she belongs anywhere, neither in Lagos, nor Manchester.
Author
Diana Anyakwo
Diana Anyakwo is an Irish-Nigerian author and ELT editor based in Manchester. Her debut young adult novel 'My Life as a Chameleon' draws on her own cultural experiences growing up in Nigeria and moving to the UK.
Reviewer Profile
Zahrah, 13
- Reviews: 12
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