Housegirl - Michael Donkor

I really wanted to like Housegirl more than I did. Perhaps it would have been easier to read rather than an audiobook. The narrator did a great job, but the accented and broken English dialogue made for a listen that required more concentration than I normally give to an audio book.

First, for a little plot. In Housegirl, Belinda is living with Auntie and Uncle in Ghana where she serves as a housemaid and mentor to another young maid in the house, Mary. Belinda is summoned, however, by friends of Aunti and Uncle to live instead in London to befriend a troubled teen, Amma. When she arrives in London, Belinda finds it difficult to adjust to life where her only role is to be a companion to Amma when she's not focused on her own studies.

Over time, Amma and Belinda begin to develop a friendship only to have it slightly implode when Belinda's conservative upbringing clashes with Amma's sexual orientation and results in a pretty terrible scene were Amma begs for kindness and Belinda gives her the opposite. This after Belinda shared with Amma the truth of her upbringing, and Amma had been soft and kind about it.

Then something else terrible happens in Ghana and Belinda has to return to deal with it, leaving the Amma/Belinda development completely unfinished. And Amma is very sweet to her again. Really, there are a lot of unraveled ends in this book that ultimately feel really unsatisfying. It stalls out when it should dig deeper.

In the end, this book could have been more.

3/5 Stars.