Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Penguin Readers Level 7: Homegoing (ELT Graded Reader) by Yaa Gyasi

38 reviews

nad_books623's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

As an African American and descendants of slaves this book was amazing.

I did not expect them to meet to meet at the end. I was so shocked to read that Marcus met Marjorie. The ending was everything and I did not think it would connect. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Grief, Suicide, Violence, Religious bigotry, Rape, and Drug use

Moderate: Trafficking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Violence

Minor: Toxic relationship, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Homophobia

crybabybea's review against another edition

reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Addiction, Child abuse, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Sexual harassment, Torture, Drug use, Misogyny, Slavery, Colonisation, Death of parent, Murder, Classism, Racism, Sexual content, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexism, War, Confinement, Excrement, Grief, Pregnancy, Drug abuse, Trafficking, Fire/Fire injury, Police brutality, Child death, Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Religious bigotry

noahsingh's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad

4.25

Enjoyed a lot of aspects of this book: 
- Love a family/generational story.
-Colonial resistance storylines were really interesting.
-Felt like I heard some perspectives I hadn't heard before, and learnt some historical stuff about the exploitation of black people post-slavery I hadn't heard about before. 

Ending was a lil disappointing to me tho,

in the sense that I wish Marjorie had been aware of her families past a bit more through Akua and therefore somehow able to recognise Marcus as familiy

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Racism, Colonisation, Hate crime, Excrement, Gore, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Abandonment, Addiction, Blood, Death, Gore, Drug abuse, and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, War, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Infertility, Pregnancy, Suicide, Alcohol, Child death, and Infidelity

sidekicksam's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

"We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture."

Following the line of descendants of two sisters who never met, each chapter is a snapshot of the life of another generation. One sister is sold into slavery, one marries a white man and remains free.

Now *this* is what I mean when I say I want to read a multigenerational family saga! Phenomenal. Astounding. Compelling. Captivating.

I already knew I loved Gyasi's writing style because Transcendent Kingdom is one of my favourite books, and I've been seeing nothing but raving reviews for Homegoing, but they all are true. The story is, despite it only showing a glimpse into every generation's descendant's life, so layered. It is incredible how she's able to write a character so well, despite only reading about their lives for about 20 pages.

Some multigenerational family sagas are daunting because of their size (The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois & Pachinko are both 500+ page chonkers and thus, quite intimidating), but this one is both manageable and easy to follow, so a great place to start if you're looking for a thought-provoking, immersive read that spans multiple decades.

Some quotes:

Quey sighed. So he would be here forever. The birds had stopped singing. Perhaps they sensed his exasperation. He looked at them, their blue, yellow, orange wings, their hooked beaks. 
"Theere were no birds like this in London," Quey said softly. "There was no color. Everything was gray. The sky, the buildings, even the people looked gray."

"We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture."

Forgiveness was an act done after the fact, a piece of the bad deed's future. And if you point the people's eye to the future, they might not see what is being done to hurt them in the present. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Slavery, and Homophobia

takarakei's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

"We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must always ask your self, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.” 

This is not my typical kind of read, but I did think it was well done for the most part. Particularly the beginning stories were very lush and I think there's some extremely important perspectives to be gained by reading this book. As the quote says - there are many sides of history to be told and many perspectives are often left out. Towards the ending few stories I was a tad less engaged with, perhaps these were more familiar stories to me and that's why? Having the family tree at the front was very integral to be aware of how people were related. For sure an important read!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Violence, Death, Slavery, and Colonisation

Moderate: Rape, Drug use, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Drug abuse, and Addiction

Minor: Homophobia, Sexual content, and Excrement

htedesco's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Grief, Rape, Death of parent, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Addiction, Fire/Fire injury, Sexism, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Death, Blood, Colonisation, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Drug abuse, Vomit, and Homophobia

greenan26's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense 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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Colonisation, Classism, Homophobia, Rape, Trafficking, Torture, Slavery, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Grief, Pregnancy, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Excrement and Confinement

asset_exe's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is a novel that portrays the unknown yet simple relation between Africans and African Americans. The story is illustrated through two sisters, both of whom know nothing of the other, and each birthing generations of people who represent the far past, near past and present. Effia, the sister left behind, is the genesis of the African royal lineage of Ghana, as portrayed in the novel, and takes us back to the pre-colonial African states, which were solely ran by Africans who held trading relationships with Europeans.

Her descendants' stories connect fiction to reality through the presentation of events such as the war of the golden stool (The Asante-British wars), Kwame-Nkrumah's victory to independence and modern day Ghana. Esa, on the other hand, is taken away by slave traders and traded to America as a slave. Her descendants' stories highlight the struggles/hardships that black Americans underwent during slavery, Jim Crow, and modern day USA. Through the two sides being connected yet very different, in terms of struggle and hardship, Gyasi is able to bring out the interconnection between Africans and African Americans and share the struggles that each black generation underwent due to a common denominator, white people.

. In her novel, Gyasi greatly provokes white supremacists by illustrating the torturous acts that were performed on these people. Alternatively, Gyasi also concludes how that while we were all disconnected at some point of our ancestral lives, African Americans and Africans are one in the same. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Racism, Homophobia, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Drug abuse, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexism, Addiction, and Suicide

rieviolet's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

It is not easy to cover such a vast temporal space in a single book, so I recognize Gyasi's ability to tackle a story so big in scope. 
Still, I think that this kind of narrative structure (chapters with an ever-changing point of view) is just not my personal preference. Inevitably (as it happens, for example, with short stories collections), there were certain characters' storylines that I appreciated more compared to others. In general, I found the final chapters (those closer to us in time) less engaging. 
There were also sections that I liked but that ended a bit too abruptly, leaving too much left unsaid about crucial events and the characters' fate (and not all of the storylines got mentioned again and expanded upon, further on in the narration).

At times, the book got a bit too graphic for my (I admit a bit delicate) sensibilities, but it does deal with very heavy topics; just be sure to check the content warnings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Drug use, Police brutality, Sexual content, Excrement, Kidnapping, Death, Drug abuse, Slavery, Racism, Colonisation, Violence, Trafficking, Sexual violence, and Torture

Moderate: War, Child abuse, Confinement, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Rape, Pregnancy, and Racial slurs

Minor: Suicide, Vomit, Cannibalism, Adult/minor relationship, Fatphobia, Ableism, Murder, Infertility, Bullying, Homophobia, Infidelity, and Child death

bashsbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I don't have words for how incredible Homegoing is. The blurb cannot do justice to the journey it takes you on. Two Ghanaian half-sisters with divergent paths (one as a wife to a white colonizer and slaver, the other captured and sold into slavery) is only the beginning. This book follows Effia and Esi's lineage for seven generations, one line primarily in Ghana and one line primarily in the United States. It is a sizzering, raw, unflinchingly honest depiction of the experience and the legacy of the slave trade, in all its awful minutia; the creation and the evolution of the systems that still oppress black people. Truly, I've never seen a clearer depiction of generational trauma. It's incredible. That's all I can say. Cannot recommend enough.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Child death, Colonisation, Confinement, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Violence, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic friendship, Xenophobia, Vomit, and War

Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, Suicide, Mental illness, and Ableism

Minor: Car accident and Medical content