Review | Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Genre: Historical Fiction

Published: June 7th 2016

Goodreads Summary:

"Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation. 

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi’s magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control.Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer."

Review:

I first heard about this book from shemightbemonica and the premise really grabbed me; I'm grateful to her because without her channel I would never have picked up this fantastic book!

I was so moved by this book. I don't even know how to accurately describe it; this book is just so much. So much history and pain, but also love and healing and family. 

At the beginning of the book, there is a little genealogy chart that shows you all of the generations that will be followed throughout the book. The book starts with Effia and Esi, two sisters who never meet, and from there, Yaa Gyasi dives deep into the movings of the two branches of this family. I felt like I was personally getting to know each of the descendants, even though each chapter only gives a brief glance into their lives. It was an almost surreal feeling, reading each relative's chapter and finding the hints of their parents and grandparents in their lives, and flashing forward to read about their children. 

And each character was so alive, so nuanced, with their own hurts and desires; I almost felt like a peeping tom, intruding on something I shouldn't have. I half-expected the characters to jump from the page and start breathing and speaking in front of me. 

As the book is about the dual histories of one family in Ghana and the States, of course this book deals with racism and its effects on both lines of the family. I learned so much by reading this book, parts of American history I'd never heard mentioned before, like the arresting of free black men post-slavery so they could be sent to labor camps (which is just slavery under a different name) and the diffusion of drugs throughout Harlem in the 60's. I also learned a lot about Ghana and the wars with the British. The whole book is so informative!

Yaa Gyasi's writing is no joke. I wish I had the book in front of me so I could give some examples but instead, I'll just say how gorgeous it is. It's lush and has this crispness to it, a naturalness like she was born to put words down on paper. Even as I'm writing this, I know I'm not doing it justice. You need to read it firsthand to understand the beauty of it.

So long story short: read Homegoing! Like, for real! Go get it right now right this minute right now go!