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A review by artemisg
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
emotional
hopeful
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
Life-changing. I’m not kidding.
I don’t know if I have sufficient words to sum up how good this book is and how many emotions it made me feel. But I’ll try.
This book follows our narrator, Gifty, as she tells the story of her parents’ immigration to The United States from Ghana and the gifts and trauma that journey brought. She tells the story of her father’s leaving, her mother’s perseverance, and her brother’s radiance. She tells the story of her brother’s addiction and overdose and her mother’s depression. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at Stanford, studying neuroscience. Her research surrounds addiction and reward-seeking. Additionally, her mother has fallen into another depressive episode and has come to stay in her apartment, and we see Gifty try to reconcile the mother she once knew and the mother she now has, as well as reconcile her religious identity and her identity as a scientist. She was raised Evangelical in Alabama, and her religion defined her for the longest time. Then, her atheism defined her. And now, what defines her?
I trembled, and in the one second it took for the tremble to move through my body, I stopped believing in God.
This is a heartwrenching story about identity, religion, addiction, and family. It is a story about loss. The loss of family members, the loss of religion, the loss of yourself. When something is such a significant part of your identity, who are you when it’s gone? When Gifty loses her faith, in one fell swoop, she does not know who she is. She does not know how to navigate the world without prayer. And as she navigates her young adulthood without God, she is confronted by many scientists who disregard and look down upon religion. Something she cannot do because, despite casting her own religion away, she has seen how it saved her mother’s life, and she has felt something; she has known God to be there.
… but the more I do this work the more I believe in a kind of holiness in our connection to everything on Earth. Holy is the mouse. Holy is the grain the mouse eats. Holy is the seed. Holy are we.
This was such a beautiful examination of redefining relationships with God and other people. It was also a wonderful examination of how people interpret the Bible, how indigenous religions and spirituality intertwine with Christianity, and how blackness and Christianity co-exist. Of course, this is also a story about being black in Alabama and being black in academia. The need to go above and beyond, the need to prove something, and the understanding that you are, always, the other.
We read the Bible how we want to read it. It doesn’t change, but we do.
It is also a story about addiction and loss and has some heavy scenes and themes because of that. It is about loving and hating someone with an addiction and losing yourself when you lose them, both to the drugs and, eventually, to death. It made me cry a lot.
It’s true that for years before he died, I would look at his face and think, What a pity, what a waste. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction.
I don’t know if I have sufficient words to sum up how good this book is and how many emotions it made me feel. But I’ll try.
This book follows our narrator, Gifty, as she tells the story of her parents’ immigration to The United States from Ghana and the gifts and trauma that journey brought. She tells the story of her father’s leaving, her mother’s perseverance, and her brother’s radiance. She tells the story of her brother’s addiction and overdose and her mother’s depression. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at Stanford, studying neuroscience. Her research surrounds addiction and reward-seeking. Additionally, her mother has fallen into another depressive episode and has come to stay in her apartment, and we see Gifty try to reconcile the mother she once knew and the mother she now has, as well as reconcile her religious identity and her identity as a scientist. She was raised Evangelical in Alabama, and her religion defined her for the longest time. Then, her atheism defined her. And now, what defines her?
I trembled, and in the one second it took for the tremble to move through my body, I stopped believing in God.
This is a heartwrenching story about identity, religion, addiction, and family. It is a story about loss. The loss of family members, the loss of religion, the loss of yourself. When something is such a significant part of your identity, who are you when it’s gone? When Gifty loses her faith, in one fell swoop, she does not know who she is. She does not know how to navigate the world without prayer. And as she navigates her young adulthood without God, she is confronted by many scientists who disregard and look down upon religion. Something she cannot do because, despite casting her own religion away, she has seen how it saved her mother’s life, and she has felt something; she has known God to be there.
… but the more I do this work the more I believe in a kind of holiness in our connection to everything on Earth. Holy is the mouse. Holy is the grain the mouse eats. Holy is the seed. Holy are we.
This was such a beautiful examination of redefining relationships with God and other people. It was also a wonderful examination of how people interpret the Bible, how indigenous religions and spirituality intertwine with Christianity, and how blackness and Christianity co-exist. Of course, this is also a story about being black in Alabama and being black in academia. The need to go above and beyond, the need to prove something, and the understanding that you are, always, the other.
We read the Bible how we want to read it. It doesn’t change, but we do.
It is also a story about addiction and loss and has some heavy scenes and themes because of that. It is about loving and hating someone with an addiction and losing yourself when you lose them, both to the drugs and, eventually, to death. It made me cry a lot.
It’s true that for years before he died, I would look at his face and think, What a pity, what a waste. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse and Addiction
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism