Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Penguin Readers Level 7: Homegoing (ELT Graded Reader)

Wow wow wow. I didn’t fully know what I was getting myself into when I started reading this book, but 3 chapters in I was absolutely hooked. The beautifully crafted storytelling of each of the two halves of a family tree across multiple generations, and ultimately places, was absolutely stunning. I was floored by the intricacies of this story, specifically some of the situations that the characters faced as Black “free” people in America. Often, the US education system brushes things like Jim Crow and its legacy under the rug and this so intricately explored those different circumstances in an honest and heartbreaking way.

Yaa Gyasi is a story teller and a historian wrapped up into one it felt like. I have been on a more complete and compelling history lesson on the realities of being Black and/or African in 300 pages than I have in all my years of schooling. What a gift she has given us with this book.

She says in the book that Marjorie is trying to find books that she “can feel inside” and I felt that way about this book. Every character was so complete and so real: you could feel, smell, see, and hear them as if they were sitting right next to you as you read their story. It was all-encompassing.

And, realistically, I don’t think I’ve heard a more real, honest, and raw description of what it is like to be a Black American today than in the last chapter of this book. Between the pages of 289-290 and 295-296, Yaa heartbreakingly and succinctly spells out exactly what we (white people, of colonizers’ descent) have wrought and the realities of how that affects everyday life of people who are generations removed from slavery itself. I was floored by this book. Absolutely floored.

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noahsingh's review against another edition

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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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takarakei's review against another edition

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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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mjverrall's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

4.75

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htedesco's review against another edition

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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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mirandalikesbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

My favorite part of this book is that every character is the main character. I was invested in every one. I don't understand how Gyasi was able to construct the life motivations of each character so perfectly with only giving each character like 20 pages. Seeing some of the characters age throught the generations is such a gift. Because so many wonderful characters had their life cut short as a product of white violence.

It is awe inspiring and heart breaking how many generations were and still are affected by slavery. How slavery has direct ties to the oppression and cyclical struggles of black people in America and in Africa. White oppression has killed generations of black joy.

This story demonstrates the struggle of being a woman so brilliantly too. How many generations of woman went undefined until a man defined her.

I learned so much through the course of this book. The birth of our modern prison industrial complex being born of the enslavement of African and Black men is something that makes perfect sense. But it was laid out so clearly here. Some of the violence was so vividly painted that I keep retracing those scenes in my mind. Some of the heartbreak too.

Absolute must read. We have been privileged to not know these stories for long enough. And we are privileged now to see these stories through the perspective of each of these characters.

Content Warnings

hmw102's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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beanew's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative 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

4.25

Gyasi’s storytelling is a magnificent accomplishment in oral tradition despite being a written book. The many vignettes throughout the generations read like one would expect a great oral storyteller to speak, capturing every detail and filling the listener with emotion and understanding.
The motifs throughout the book were well explored and neatly wrapped up, and I wish I had could write an essay on the ways Gyasi chose to resolve certain elements (the stone necklaces!!!). I found so many of the characters deeply compelling and empathetic, so wildly different from each other. Gyasi never shies away from the brutality of the slave trade, it feels very painfully realistic in ways that Americans are never truly shown in history class.
My criticisms are that I felt the very final chapter was not as moving as I expected it to be simply because Marcus is the least fleshed-out character (in my opinion) of the whole book, so to end with him felt weak. I loved the character of Marjorie, but I found that the similarities to Gyasi’s own life experiences took me out of the story many times; instead of being immersed, I found myself wondering which pieces of that chapter were autobiographical or wish fulfillment of the author. Also a pattern of minor fat phobia happened frequently enough that it simply can’t be the character’s perspectives, it’s just Gyasi’s opinion. Beautiful people are “thick”, dumb/mean/loud/gluttonous people are “fat”. Felt weird, but didn’t majorly detract from the story!
Overall, the concept was so beautifully executed and the book was so moving and heartbreaking in equal measures. I would highly recommend it!

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