BOOK REVIEW - Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu

by Fran Hauser
Guest Editor

Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu

by Nadia Owusu. In this impressive debut memoir, Owusu uses beautiful language and storytelling to recount a past filled with loss, longing, fear, and abandonment. She takes us on an emotional journey through six countries, where she suffers from her father’s death, mother’s rejection and stepmother’s emotional abuse. Her struggles with depression and madness are heartbreaking. “Ghana, America, England, Italy, Ethiopia, Uganda - I could not lay claim to any of those places in an incontestable way. It has always been difficult for me to say the word home with any conviction. When I was a child, I often felt like an outsider among my own family.” This book got me thinking a lot about home and “belonging”. What does home mean? Is it a sense of place? Is it the people that love you? Or can you find home inside yourself?

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Fran Hauser is a bestselling author, startup investor and champion of women. For more of her book recommendations, follow @fransbookshelf on Instagram.

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