Homegoing in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 14, 2018 Kay rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: e-book, fiction, book-clubs, available-mcpl, modern-fiction, africa

My impression while reading this book was initially very favorable, but this view faded when I realized how episodic the book was. Each relatively short chapter was based on a successive generation of one of the two “lineages” of the two initial characters: the half sisters Effia, who marries a white man, and Esi, who is shipped to America as a slave. The two are unknown to each other, but their legacies are intertwined in tragic ways.

Despite this intriguing premise, I soon tired of new charact My impression while reading this book was initially very favorable, but this view faded when I realized how episodic the book was. Each relatively short chapter was based on a successive generation of one of the two “lineages” of the two initial characters: the half sisters Effia, who marries a white man, and Esi, who is shipped to America as a slave. The two are unknown to each other, but their legacies are intertwined in tragic ways.

Despite this intriguing premise, I soon tired of new characters being introduced with each rather short chapter, leaving the story of the previous character unresolved. I was also somewhat disappointed that I got no “new” sense of each character as they all seemed locked into the same somewhat simple albeit poetically evocative voice.

While I enjoyed the book’s opening chapters, and liked the concept of tracing the effects of slavery down through time, I wasn’t very impressed by the execution. Let’s just say that by midpoint in the book, I was having trouble remembering who was related to whom (luckily, there was a genealogical chart supplied in the front), and I began, frankly, not to care who was related to whom. The novel was also rather clumsy and predictable in its ending, which I won’t give away, but let’s just say it manages to tie things rather too neatly together.

This novel, for me, paled in comparison with works which examine the effects of slavery, racism, colonialism, and oppression such as Kindred, The Color Purple, Things Fall Apart, or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Having said that, although I was a bit frustrated by Homegoing’s structure, as I’ve said, I admired the ambition of its scope, however compressed. For a first novel, it was a bold undertaking.

In addition, I did enjoy Gyasi’s depictions of tribal village life, especially, and somewhat ironically, the secondary characters – the mothers, fathers, chieftans, cousins, and so on – whom I found rendered more individualistically and memorably than many of the subsequent protagonists (after Effia and Esi, that is). The details of life in Ghana and intricacies of different belief systems contrasting with Christianity were well done.

What I would have enjoyed more, perhaps, would have been a fuller exploration of the two half sisters’ lives. That would have been a powerful enough story, I think.

(Read for "Potluck and Prose" book club meeting in January 2018.) ...more

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Jun 17, 2019 Astrid Lim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: family, literature, historical-fiction, culture, africa, african-american

This is a beautiful, very well written book about a long line of family heritage, tradition and history. From Gold Coast to slave ship to Southern America. From tribe wars and slavery and Civil War - this is a huge book with important topics, but somehow it is written in a very engaging and digestible way. Kudos to Yaa Gyasi for her debut. It's truly exceptional. ...more

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Jul 02, 2025 Ann rated it liked it

One Hundred Years of Solitude has 400+ pages, now this book spans 300 years so I'm glad it didn't do 400 pages per century LOL.
Joking aside, I'm glad that the author didn't try too hard with the writing, given the long timespan they wanted to cover. Sometimes I cannot finish topics that are too heartbreaking, so I appreciated that the author gave us a persona per generation as a taster, if you will. The trade-off of that though, was that I never hear about the characters once I started caring a ...more

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Feb 28, 2018 Ra rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: africa, african-writer, audio-book, scribd

The scope of this novel is huge as it covers over 350 years of the history of modern day Ghana that was known as the Gold Coast during colonial times. It traces descendants of two sisters sharing the same mother one born to an Ashanti strongman and the other to a Fonte strongman who captured the mother during the on and off wars between the two tribes. The Fonte sister Effia ends up marrying a white man and lives in the Cape Coast castle while her half sister Essie languishes for a time in the d ...more

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May 21, 2017 Jen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, books-that-changed-me, governerds

This book is amazing in scope and accomplishment. Somehow Gyasi managed to write an epic story of history and pain in the length of a regular novel. This book was so moving and explores how colonialism and the slave trade had lasting reach on the people that were forced in to slavery and the people that remained in Africa. I felt the weight of history when reading this book and I cried a lot. It is also a book that is important for understanding America.

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