Review:
Nadia Owusu is the daughter of a Ghanaian father and an Armenian American mother. When she was two, her mother abandoned her family and only occasionally reappeared. Nadia's father, a United Nations official, remarried. In addition to the two daughters he had with his first wife, he had a son with his second wife. When Nadia was 13, her father died of cancer. Nadia and her siblings opted to stay with Anabel, Nadia's stepmother, although Nadia and her younger sister Yasmeen's relationship with Anabel was complicated, to say the least.
Years later, during an argument, Anabel told Nadia that her father hadn't died of cancer, but rather of AIDS. Nadia was left feeling like the foundations of her life, already filled with cracks, were dashed to pieces. Her father, who she'd always felt closest to and who she'd put on a pedestal, had potentially had secrets she didn't know about. Throughout the book, Nadia examines her relationship with her father, the things he told her, and the various other "aftershocks" of her life.
