Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi My rating: 5 of 5 stars I read “Homegoing” as part of my library’s book club. I didn’t finish it in time for the book club meeting, but I had heard good things about it so I wanted to make sure I fit this into my reading schedule. I ended up reading it on a road trip, which helped me enjoy this book more than if I read this in bits and pieces. “Homegoing” is the story of two half-sisters, neither knowing of the other, who’s families are affected by the slave trade in what is […]
Amazing, absolutely breath taking. One of My Top 5 Reads This Year.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Bingo Square Round 2: Underrepresented I expected that this novel would be good given faintingviolet’s review, but it completely surpassed those expectations. I was completely blown away by this novel, and how elegantly Gyasi plotted this family epic, showing how the slave trade shaped two different countries. I have read books and novels that addressed the experiences of men and women stolen from their homes who survived the Middle Passage and were forced into the United States slavery system. I’ve read about sharecropping, prison labor, the Great Migration and Civil Rights. I have also read novels that talked about the loss […]
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10/21/2018 's CBR10 Review No:183 | 
| Tags: cbr10bingo, colonialism, dark history, ghana, gold coast, great book, Homegoing, Multigenerational, Slavery, Yaa Gyasi | Category: Fiction, History | 4 Comments
Our Histories Build Us (CBR10Bingo)
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Confession: I took this book out of the library no less than twice before I managed to read it. I was intimidated by the book, both by its content and its acclaim. It has a near perfect five star rating on Cannonball Read and high rating on Goodreads where literary fiction doesn’t normally do so well. I shouldn’t have been hesitant – the book earns its high rating by being one of the most accessible works of literary and historical fiction I have possibly ever read. In her debut Yaa Gyasi tells a story which is both grand in scope […]
9/30/2018 's CBR10 Review No:47 | | Tags: cbr10bingo, colonial, faintingviolet, Homegoing, listicles, post colonial, read harder challenge, Yaa Gyasi | Category: Fiction, History | 2 Comments
21: Homegoing
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
I read Homegoing in 2016, along with ElCicco and a host of others since then. I won’t recap the book for you, but have enclosed the link, if you’d like a refresher on my first review. When I re-read a book I’ve read for a previous CBR, I like to be in the habit of building on the initial review and thinking about what I’ve taken away on the second reading. I find that new thoughts will emerge. And they surely did for Homegoing. This time around, I am less struck by the characters and more so by the idea […]
4/1/2018 's CBR10 Review No:21 |
History is Storytelling
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
“And in my village we have a saying about separated sisters. They are like a woman and her reflection, doomed to stay on opposite sides of the pond.” I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that has managed to stuff so much history, trauma, heartbreak, love, hardship, and resilience into so few pages. At just 300 pages, Yaa Gyasi manages to weave a rich web of connecting stories, spanning hundreds of years in history over 7 generations. We begin with two sisters, Effia and Esi, separated at birth in their home country of Africa, and subsequent generations after them […]
3/3/2018 's CBR10 Review No:8 |
The breath of longing
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
So much has been written about this book here on CBR, I almost had no choice but to read it. But I wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I finally got it from Overdrive. It took me days to get into it, and I read multiple books in between the early chapters. But I stuck with it because the premise was very good, and it has received near universal praise (both here, and in the broader literary world). Sticking with a book that hasn’t grabbed me just isn’t something I typically do. I’ve given up on books on […]
Read this book! And then give it to someone else to read.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Here’s another one going on my “give to all my friends” list! This book is really, really good. Each chapter is a vignette of one person per generation, starting with two half-sisters, Essie and Effia. One is sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. The chapters follow six of each of their descendants in Ghana and America. As you might expect, 6 generations of African and Africa-American history includes some seriously ugly chapters: colonialism, explicit and implicit racism, the transatlantic slave trade, the Fugitive Slave Act, sharecropping, and on and on. The most beautiful part of this book is how wonderfully the […]
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5/2/2017 's CBR9 Review No:5 |
“Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.”
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
4.5 stars. I hate to say I sometimes judge books by their covers, but it’s the truth. It wasn’t until I saw the stunning UK cover that I really stopped and paid attention to this book everyone has raved about. No regrets! This was a stunning debut novel and absolutely worth a read. Homegoing is a generational tale that starts with two half sisters in the Gold Coast, Effia and Esi. One becomes the wife of a white slave trader and the other is sold into slavery, unbeknownst to her sister. The way this book is structured, we check in […]
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