Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Homegoing

Wow, this book. It’s so ambitious, and I don’t think I really knew what I was getting into, but it pulls it off SO well. There are fourteen main characters—seven generations—and we really only spend a snapshot of their lives with them, but man, Yaa Gyasi is a masterful writer and she makes you care about each and every one of them.

This is almost like a collection of short stories, with the thread of a family line connecting them to each other. And I loved following that line, seeing how what happened to their ancestors affected the new characters, and how so much of our lives are decided just by virtue of what family we’re born into.

It was an excellent book to listen to—though I am forever grateful for the PDF of the family tree that is included because I was referring to it constantly!

I loved Transcendent Kingdom by this author, but I think I loved this one even more, just because I’ve never read anything like this book. I’m excited for whatever Yaa Gyasi writes next!

Read if you like: character-driven stories, generational sagas, family trees, missed connections.

Content Warnings

musewithxara's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

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kmtd's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

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caprivoyant's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

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

4.75

Just... Beautiful.

At the start of the book, Gyasi writes an Akan proverb that translates to:

"The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position."

I can't help but wonder if this proverb is what inspired this story in the first place because it is just that perfect.⁠

This book spans 8 generations across 2 family lines, and for each person, you get a small peek into their life—into their place in something greater than themselves. Gyasi does a brilliant job of inviting you in and capturing the essence of each person's life in small clips while still moving the family's story along: it felt like a compilation of short stories that make up one brilliant novel (a bunch of individually awe-inspiring trees that make up a beautiful forest). ⁠

I will say, there were times in this book where I wanted more information about each of the individual family members. I wanted to see how they healed (or didn't) from certain life challenges, so I really had to pull myself back a few times and remember that this book was meant to be the lineage's story (not the individual's). That was hard at times, but helped me enjoy the read more in the end.

I read this as a buddy read which, turns out, was a really great choice. ⁠This book is only ~300 pages, but each chapter packs a punch, and being able to pace this book out and having space to process it with another thoughtful/empathic human helped to integrate this book in a way that I'm not sure would have happened on my own.⁠

It was a beautiful, emotional novel that made me feel like my heart was melting and being molded back together all at once. Highly recommend if you're in a deep-feeling kind of reading mood.⁠

Please note: I didn't take notes on content warnings as I was reading, so please don't use the ones in my review as an exhaustive list.⁠ This book covers a lot of hard and triggering topics, though, including those I listed in my review. If you are thinking of picking up this book (especially if you're in a sensitive emotional space) please, please, please 🙏🏻 make a plan to care for your emotions while reading this.
⁠ ⁠

Content Warnings

mitzireads's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative 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? It's complicated

5.0

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maggiekateb's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad 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

5.0

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lorenag5's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

This was such a page-turner, I think I read it in two nights. It's educational and makes you think broadly about the intergenerational trauma of the slave trade that reverberates to this day, but does so with specific stories of individuals that are enjoyable and engaging even apart from their historical implications. Really excellent.

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jayisreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

I commend Yaa Gyasi for taking such a fresh approach to storytelling with Homegoing. It was an incredibly ambitious task, but one she handled phenomenally and with care to create two captivating intergenerational stories. The book starts with a split in a family lineage in present-day Ghana during the eighteenth century with two half-sisters, Effia and Esi. Homegoing, and it’s haunting, especially because it lingers in an unexpected way. Despite coming from the same mother, Effia and Esi never knew each other and led entirely different lives; one being married off to a British slave trader, while in the dungeons below, the other was enslaved and sent to the United States. From this point on and across seven generations, we get a chapter that gives a glimpse of each descendant’s life, often during significant moments in history (such as the Great Migration).

What was most powerful about Homegoing was the afterlives of every character playing a role in shaping their lineage. Through this, we see the repercussions of slavery and colonialism, resulting in the intergenerational trauma that would haunt for centuries (and, frankly, continue to haunt). The word “homegoing” marks death, but also a return to home. Gyasi pushes the reader to contemplate what shapes Black life and death, as well as what “home” means for the forcibly displaced. (There’s also a whole thing we can get into about Orlando Patterson’s “social death,” but that’s a literal essay waiting to happen.)

Homegoing is raw and emotional. While some may not be thrilled that each chapter are essentially like vignettes, I find that this approach precisely captures what Gyasi wants the reader to experience: a haunting full of unresolved ache.

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