Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

106 reviews

paigieodo's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Never will you read a fictional novel that feels so honest as Homegoing. Never will you read a book so saturated and vibrant, even as it lays out bleak, grey histories. These stories, these family lines—they're made up. But they're real. Yaa Gyasi does not need to dramatize or embellish history to drive home a point about ancestral trauma or about systemic racism; The history tells the story, Gyasi simply uses her beautiful words as a vehicle. Her characters, all of whom are stunningly rich and full, almost feel tangible in the real world. They endure the mundane much more often than the extraordinary. Gyasi wants us to understand that suffering lies in the average and the simple as well as the audacious and the repugnant.  Her characters feel real to me. I feel like I know them, and like I will always remember them. This is both because Gyasi is fantastic at writing characters, and because the history she pulls them from is so rooted in truth. They feel real because they could be, and in many ways, are.

We all carry our families—the ones we know and the ones we don't—in ourselves.  We are all traumatized by their traumas, imbued with their loves and their fears, holding all of their good and their bad as well as the good and the bad that was done to them. Yaa Gyasi understands this better than any other author I've encountered.  Nothing speaks more to this than these words from the closing chapter:

"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."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Confinement, Racism, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Rape, and Blood

Minor: Homophobia, Excrement, and Kidnapping

latisha's review against another edition

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

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

One of the most stunning, moving books I’ve ever read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, and Grief

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: Child death and Sexual violence

thevietvegan's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book is about generational trauma and weaves Black history into its narrative so much that you feel like it's a true story. The people feel real, the family feels real, and the pain feels unbearably real. I couldn't put it down, even though it is a very sad book. Each chapter is about the bloodlines from one woman in Ghana, and each generation that came from her, and it's kind of incredible how quickly you fall in love with each generation and want to root for them throughout all the mistakes they make. 5/5, highly recommend. It puts in perspective so much of the Black history and anti-racism works I've been consuming all year.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Torture, Blood, and Grief

Moderate: Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Kidnapping, and Medical trauma

Minor: Infidelity

curatoriallyyours's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book is a genealogical epic, tracing the lineage of two sisters who never knew each other from their beginnings in Ghana in the slave trade era. The story is presented in vignettes - the two family lines taking turns in telling their story with each generation. A family tree at the beginning of the book is most useful in keeping track of where each narrator sits within the lineage. The aspect I appreciated most in this book is the deep dive it takes on the far-reaching effects of the colonial mindset and the slave trade. I also love the characters and how we get to know them and their struggles in each vignette. One of the other takeaways for me was the lack of agency that women had and how each woman in the story coped under the circumstances she found herself in. A beautifully written book with vivid characters and important stories to tell.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Trafficking

Minor: Addiction, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Police brutality, and Grief

Knowing this book is about slavery, most references to sensitive topics are absolutely historically contextual and, in my opinion, not overdone.

loraora's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Mental illness

Minor: Child death and Infertility

luciehudson's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Minor: Addiction and Sexual content