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A review by elerireads
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
4.0
Absolutely gut-wrenching exploration of addiction, grief and depression, and the shame and taboo around them. All about the desperate search for meaning in the wake of tragedy - a tug of war between science and religion (with a bit of philosophy thrown in), that ultimately both sides will lose because there is no meaning to be found in cruel, awful, senseless loss. It was quite hard to read at times.
I loved all the neuroscience in it and that the work Gifty does is important enough to the story for us to get descriptions of her experiments. Her respect and appreciation for the scientific process really shines through. Often in novels where main characters are scientists it's extremely unconvincing and/or vague, but for what it's worth, I (a non-neuroscientist!) was 100% convinced by this. I haven't googled Yaa Gyasi yet to find out, but if she's not actually a neuroscientist by training then I am super impressed.
I loved all the neuroscience in it and that the work Gifty does is important enough to the story for us to get descriptions of her experiments. Her respect and appreciation for the scientific process really shines through. Often in novels where main characters are scientists it's extremely unconvincing and/or vague, but for what it's worth, I (a non-neuroscientist!) was 100% convinced by this. I haven't googled Yaa Gyasi yet to find out, but if she's not actually a neuroscientist by training then I am super impressed.