I just… I… I don’t even know where to begin with this review. This book is a-mazing. It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time, and should be required reading for everyone. The story starts on the Gold Coast of Africa (Ghana), with the parallel tales of two half-sisters who never know each other – one is married off to a white slave trader, and one is captured and sold as a slave. Each chapter alternates between the next generations of each woman’s […]
A top pick for 2017…and it’s only January!
One of my top five! And it’s only January! This book is soooooo good, you guys. It’s eye opening and tragic and heartwarming and epic and so many other things. Yaa Gyasi (last name sounds like “Jesse”) is a Stanford graduate, born in Ghana and raised in America. On a visit to Ghana, while researching her book, she saw the Cape Coast Castle. This is one of many forts in Africa used by European traders. It is also the genesis of Gyasi’s fictional story, which […]
Seriously good historical fiction that all y’all should read.
“You want to know what weakness is? Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.” So everybody has been saying this is really good, and now after reading it, I can confirm that is indeed really good. You know, in case my star rating didn’t already do that for you and you need the actual words. THIS BOOK IS REALLY GOOD. There. It’s in all caps now, and everybody knows that all caps on the […]
Impressive and ambitious
“How could he explain to Marjorie that what he wanted to capture with his project was the feeling of time, of having been a part of something that stretched so far back, was so impossibly large, that it was easy to forget that she, and he, and everyone else, existed in it–not apart from it, but inside of it.” Homegoing (2016) is a far-reaching and impressive first novel by Yaa Gyasi. The book begins in the late 1700’s on the coast of Western Africa with two […]