My Life as a Chameleon is a powerful story of resilience and belonging, about family secrets and how they can destroy even the deepest bonds. It is a story about finding your place in the world and realising you deserve to be there.

very raw book, tugs at your heartstrings. the complex dynamics between lily and her family, those around her, and the new world she finds herself in... we are all rooting for you, lily!

This is a truly immersive book, It deals with tough subjects, and does it well. Lily's coming of age story, of growing up in Nigeria and Uk, was engrossing.

This is an INCREDIBLE book. I was completely engrossed it is an utterly immersive experience. I lived and breathed this book while I was reading it

Such a delicate and beautiful story told impeccably. It was an easy read that drew me in from the beginning and made me care for the characters

This coming of age story follows Lily, a young girl growing up in Lagos, who is born to a Nigerian father and an Irish mother. Lily's father is a doctor, and her mum has a good job at a foreign company, but despite their affluence, her life is far from happy.

As the youngest, by far, of four children, Lily is often very lonely. Even before they leave home for foreign boarding schools and university classes, there is a cameraderie between her two older sisters and her brother that somehow excludes her - and Lily knows that it is not only because of her age that she is left out from their charmed siblings' circle.

This sense of alienation also mirrors the distance between Lily and her father, who is extremely volatile and prone to dark moods. As a result, the little girl loves and fears her father in almost equal measure. Her mother is more approachable, but seems to have little time free in which to give her youngest child the affection that she so desperately craves.

As the only one of the four children still living at home, Lily eventually becomes the lone witness to the apparent deterioration of her parents' relationship, a gradual decay that culminates in a traumatic incident. So soon after that, when the opportunity comes to join her brother in Manchester, Lily seizes it.

Manchester is nothing like what she expected, and Lily's challenges are far from over. But the move does give her a chance to experience how other families navigate their relationships, and provides her with more insight into her own familial dynamics.

The book addresses a range of issues that are woven into Lily's story, including matters of race, class and social acceptance from peers. I was particularly interested to read about the phenomenon of Nigerwives, white women married to Nigerian men, who were not accorded the privileged status of the expatriates working in Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s.

I really enjoyed reading My Life as a Chameleon. My only issue was that the transitions marked out in terms of time and locale seemed a bit unnecessary. But the storytelling has an unmistakable ring of authenticity and flows well, even if the story itself is often bittersweet in the telling.

I had high hopes of a book that tackled the themes of mental health as well as the issues of a child trying to fit in across tow very different ways of life but unfortunately I did not enjoy the reading experience. A small point but I found the time changes of five years not confusing but quite arbitrary - maybe this was how it is set out electronically?
More importantly, as the story unfolded I had the impression the reader was being lead towards an event which in the end never seemed to appear. Yes, the father died but then there just seemed to be a litany of sad or difficult events with little to break up what I felt became a morose and uncomfortable read. Sadly, this is not a book I would recommend.

My Life As A Chameleon is an engaging coming of age story following Nigerian-Irish girl Lily as she finds her own identity amidst a mix of cultural influences.

In some ways the book itself is a bit of a chameleon, constantly shifting between identities. Is it autobiographical, or straight-up fiction? The tone feels comfortably middle-grade, but some of the content is definitely geared towards a more mature YA audience. Coupled with some very varied pacing, the overall effect is a little directionless.

There's lots to like, with its engaging characters and effortless prose, but I felt that it needed just a little more consistency of structure to reach its full potential.

An enjoyable read that read more as a work of non fiction/autobiography than literary fiction. I felt a learnt alot about the authors experience but I wasn't as blown away as I wanted to be

Our chameleon, Lily, is a young mixed race girl growing up in the 80s and 90s in Nigeria and the UK. This book reads like an autobiography, as she documents her father's mental illness and the issues she has trying to fit in as an outcast in both countries. I liked the character of Lily and felt her pain on several occasions, I feel everybody will be able to relate to her struggles when they think back to their own adolescence. I do feel that the book lacked a solid plot, without a neat ending, but I enjoyed it all the same.