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alexhaydon's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, and Medical content
sfbookgirl's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
What I love most about this story are the relationships that the main character has with family. Gifty, a sixth-year Ph.D. student at Stanford University, studies reward-seeking behavior in mice as a tool to discover why her brother was addicted to OxyContin. Raised in a religious household, Gifty grapples with the tension between science and religion and how to balance these two important aspects of her life.
I have yet to read Yaa Gysai’s Homegoing, but I really enjoyed Transcendent Kingdom. Some of the scenes involving the lab mice made me squirm and I didn’t love the fact that there were several incorrect Bay Area references, but overall, I liked this character study. Transcendent Kingdom might resonate more with readers who identify as religious, but I found the main character’s inner battle between religion and science fascinating. I can’t see myself rereading this book, but it’s one I will definitely keep on my shelf to remind myself of Gyasi’s prolific writing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent
kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
abbie_'s review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
While Homegoing is a sweeping, multigenerational saga, Gyasi shows us a different side to her writing with Transcendent Kingdom. She hones in one family, a family too quickly shrunken from four members, to three, to two, focusing on the intimate details of their lives.
.
It’s been a good few years since I read Homegoing, but I wouldn’t compare the two anyway since they are such vastly different books. Gyasi’s writing remains lucid and beautiful, and honestly I prefer a more intimate story.
.
Gifty and her family go through a lot, taking the reader with them as they try to make a home in Alabama, enduring racism at school and at work, as they battle with addiction, and as they have their faith tested. It’s such a poignant and devastating portrait of addiction, and its aftermath for the whole family. I also enjoyed the dichotomy between science and religion throughout the novel, as Gifty ponders on the place of both in her life.
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If I had one tiny complaint it would be that sometimes the time jumps were confusing, as they just happen randomly within chapters. But it’s not difficult to get yourself situated again.
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And now, we wait for the third Gyasi - very excited to see what it will be, since she has so much range clearly!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction
Moderate: Drug abuse, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Medical content, Grief, and Suicide attempt
allimoose37's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Physical abuse, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Excrement, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent
Minor: Misogyny and Sexual content
hollyd19's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This affecting novel follows Gifty, an Alabaman daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, who is pursuing a PhD in neuroscience. Her passion stems in part from her brother's death as a teenager due to an overdose.
The story is slow-moving, reflective, and tenderly poignant. Gifty spends much of her time attempting to find a bearable balance of her faith and her profession. She struggles with the questions that plague her — first as a girl in youth group, implacable by platitudes but desperately eager to be good, then as a scientist, guarded yet drawn to the beautiful, comforting mystery of belief.
Part of what makes this book so good is that it is simultaneously simple and extraordinarily perceptive. There is no major driving plot. You know most of what will happen before it does. And yet, ultimately, Gyasi found a way to engrossingly bring us along on the introspective journey of an earnest, thoughtful, brilliant woman sorting through her pain and grasping at hope.
The story is slow-moving, reflective, and tenderly poignant. Gifty spends much of her time attempting to find a bearable balance of her faith and her profession. She struggles with the questions that plague her — first as a girl in youth group, implacable by platitudes but desperately eager to be good, then as a scientist, guarded yet drawn to the beautiful, comforting mystery of belief.
Part of what makes this book so good is that it is simultaneously simple and extraordinarily perceptive. There is no major driving plot. You know most of what will happen before it does. And yet, ultimately, Gyasi found a way to engrossingly bring us along on the introspective journey of an earnest, thoughtful, brilliant woman sorting through her pain and grasping at hope.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse and Grief
Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Death, Mental illness, Racism, Self harm, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Forced institutionalization and Medical content
katie_ponderingthepages's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book gets the easiest 5 stars I’ve given for a long time. After loving Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi I was so excited to be approved for an advanced copy of her newest book Transcendent Kingdom.
Gifty was brought up an Evangelical Christian in Alabama with her Ghanian family, her father left them and returned to Ghana, her brother dies of an overdose and her mother enters a crippling depression. At 11 years old she is sent to Ghana while her mother recovers. Now a PhD student studying neuroscience, specifically addiction, she is trying to understand why her brother was taken and why her mother is trapped in depression again. She explores her faith as well as her neuroscience knowledge whilst recalling her past, trying to find the answer within God and/or science will make everything better.
The writing in this is so clever, it’s layered, it’s informative and offers insight and understanding to a number of issues. I felt as the reader that I was following Gifty’s trail of thought as she recalled events from the past and weighed up why God and her pastor hadn’t helped and why science had failed to provide answers.
Gifty’s need to fix her family is so despairingly strong, that it overtakes her life. She can’t open up to friends or form relationships and as you read her journey, trying to piece everything together for everyone else, you become more and more aware that Gifty herself is broken and struggling. When I read the following ‘“No I’m not ok”, I said, and I wondered when the last time I’d said that was. Had I ever said it, even to God?’ I burst into tears for this incredibly kind and vulnerable character.
I have no criticism whatsoever. This book is phenomenal.
Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinukbooks for the pleasure of reading this before it’s 4th March publication date
Gifty was brought up an Evangelical Christian in Alabama with her Ghanian family, her father left them and returned to Ghana, her brother dies of an overdose and her mother enters a crippling depression. At 11 years old she is sent to Ghana while her mother recovers. Now a PhD student studying neuroscience, specifically addiction, she is trying to understand why her brother was taken and why her mother is trapped in depression again. She explores her faith as well as her neuroscience knowledge whilst recalling her past, trying to find the answer within God and/or science will make everything better.
The writing in this is so clever, it’s layered, it’s informative and offers insight and understanding to a number of issues. I felt as the reader that I was following Gifty’s trail of thought as she recalled events from the past and weighed up why God and her pastor hadn’t helped and why science had failed to provide answers.
Gifty’s need to fix her family is so despairingly strong, that it overtakes her life. She can’t open up to friends or form relationships and as you read her journey, trying to piece everything together for everyone else, you become more and more aware that Gifty herself is broken and struggling. When I read the following ‘“No I’m not ok”, I said, and I wondered when the last time I’d said that was. Had I ever said it, even to God?’ I burst into tears for this incredibly kind and vulnerable character.
I have no criticism whatsoever. This book is phenomenal.
Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinukbooks for the pleasure of reading this before it’s 4th March publication date
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Mental illness
Moderate: Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Animal cruelty, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Grief
aprylclark78's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Racism, Suicide, and Medical content
morganholmes49's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, and Grief
spinesinaline's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Thanks to the publisher for an e-ARC of this one! There’s been a lot of love for Gyasi this past year but this was my first by her and I went in with limited knowledge of the book. This was a really beautiful and painful story in so many different ways. Gifty, the MC, is a PhD student studying addiction after her brother overdosed when she was younger. Narrated from her point of view, we constantly come to back to issues of addiction as she tries to study whether there are ways to help.
The book also tackles two other big areas of discussion: science vs religion and the experience of immigrants in the States. Gifty’s family had immigrated to the US from Ghana before she was born and their lives and the racism they face, some instances more insidious than others, is nothing like they expected. Gifty was also raised in a religious household, her priest playing a significant role in her family’s life throughout the book, but she struggles to make sense of the science and religion dichotomy, especially as her experience of Christianity has mostly taught her to be ashamed of herself.
I really enjoyed the author’s writing and these big issues that Gifty struggles with. It felt a little harder to get a sense of her character but there’s so much she’s still working through that we really needed the whole book to get a clear view of who she is as she starts to recognize the harms done to her in her childhood and beyond. I was reminded a lot of Sammie’s post on the trauma of being Black for Shattering Stigmas, as Gifty is so entrenched in this church and Christianity from a young age that she does feel the trauma of being Black before coming to terms with her identity as a Black woman.
I did find the ending rather abrupt and it felt so off from the rest of the story. It was too neat and wrapped up based on the previous chapter so I would’ve preferred to have taken the time to get there. There was also details about Gifty’s work that didn’t feel quite right. The author mentions in the acknowledgements that she based the research off of her friend’s so there’s likely some accuracy there but Gifty is in the final year of her PhD and still doing experiments, not having written a single word of her thesis. For the PhD students I’ve known, experiments would’ve been completely wrapped up and that last year would be entirely dedicated to writing so that struck me as odd. That aside, it’s a really wonderful book if you’re in the mood for some heavier topics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Mental illness, and Grief
Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, and Medical content