Homegoing

4.5 stars.

This is a wonderful novel, it's so unique in the way it's told in separate chapters for each character we follow. For only being 300 pages the depth and detail you get for each person is amazing. I loved reading about the different time periods and treatment of the people during those times as we followed the ancestors over the years. It's also hard to believe this is a debut novel, the writing was fantastic and so compelling, it's just an excellent book so would recommend to everyone.

Really strong debut, could have been 100 pages longer without losing my interest. I wanted to know more about all of the characters, although Yaa Gyasi does an amazing job at bringing them to life in 20-30 pages each. The chapters that take place in coastal Western Africa were the most interesting to me, as I knew nothing about its history. Will definitely be interested to see where this promising author goes next.

This book is as good as everyone has said. It's an enormous book, and I don't mean length. It spans centuries and countries. It touches upon love, youth, tragedy, lore, paranoia, race, and politics.

In Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi takes an unconventional approach to a novel and does it well. From its start in Ghana, Homegoing begins with two half-sisters and follows their descendants through seven generations. Each chapter reads like its own short story; ties to the previous generation are sometimes barely visible and so each must stand on its own. That said, this novel reads in many ways like a collection of interconnected short stories. And like any collection, some stories are stronger than others.

Given its structure, Homegoing is a very fast read. This was okay for some of the chapters, as I never connected with the character or story. Others, however, could've easily been turned into full-length novels. There are heartbreaking moments involving wonderful characters. Throughout the whole novel—I keep wanting to call it a collection—throughout the novel, the imagery and language are of a high caliber. Gyasi is evidently capable of weaving a wonderful story. I believe the only thing that keeps this particular novel from being its best is a level of disconnect. In some of the mid to mid-later chapters, some characters lack full realization. It seems to me as if the author wasn't as invested in their stories; perhaps she wasn't as in love with these characters as she was with those in the earlier and later generations. Despite this hiccup, and an overly glib final few pages, Homegoing is a vividly drawn portrait of a family that is well worth savoring.



Not only is it tempting to call this “novel” a collection, it's extremely difficult to not call it Homecoming. I had to go back through this review and correct a couple of those mistakes. It's a great title, but I suspect I'm not the only one struggling to call it the right name.

Yaa Gyasi manages to weave a cohesive and incredibly compelling story that weaves through 300 years and 8 generations of history on both sides of the Atlantic. Spurred on by the Cape Coast Castle where Ghanian women lived upstairs with their white husbands while Ghanian slaves are stacked like cordwood in the dungeons below, Gyasi tells the story of slavery and being black in America without becoming didactic or preachy. And she does it in 300 pages with each chapter introducing us to a completely new character down the split generational lines. Absolutely incredible feat of debut writing that rarely stumbles and mostly shines.