Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo's The Tiny Things Are Heavier is an expansive first novel about a woman searching for home, love, and belonging. Sommy is a Nigerian immigrant to the United States, a graduate student in literature, a sister, a daughter, a lover, a friend--but all of this leaves her still seeking a sense of identity.
Sommy left for graduate school in Iowa just weeks after her beloved brother Mezie's suicide attempt. She feels isolated in the cold Midwest and tormented by guilt. Eventually Sommy makes a few friends, and then she meets Bryan, a biracial American with a Nigerian father he never knew.
In their second year together, they travel to Nigeria. It's Sommy's first time home, and the first time she's seen or spoken with her brother since his suicide attempt. It's Bryan's first time in Nigeria. They search for his father, and Sommy shows Bryan her family, her neighborhood, her home. But a series of events culminating in a shocking tragedy causes Sommy to call her core values into question.
Okonkwo makes a wise choice to tell this story through Sommy's compelling close third-person point of view, which portrays her as anxious and exasperated, strong-willed and intelligent, cynical and devoted. In returning, Sommy feels "the loss of a place for which to pine. She had gone home, and home did not feel like home." Through Sommy's experiences, Okonkwo asks her readers to reflect upon class, privilege, race, gender, and their interlocking power structures, as well as the importance of place to one's sense of self. The Tiny Things Are Heavier is thought-provoking and unforgettable. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia