Homegoing Paperback – Big Book, 2 May 2017

This is a brilliant novel with great storytelling.Each chapter has a different POV for a specific character, and each chapter moves from one generation to the next.The flow of the story is very smooth and captivating, even though covering very dark topics from a very dark era, depicting how awful slavery and recism are.The soft over version I purchased is good as well.A recommended read indeed.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, well written, and emotive.

I actually missed my stop while I was reading this book. You will surely get carried away in this world for suspense. Loved it!!

This book is awesome. I suggested it for my book club based on good reads and amazon reviews and it did not disappoint. There was a lot to discuss. The characters are realistic, compelling and relatable and I loved the way that the stories of multiple generations were interwoven. I also learned about the slave trade and appreciate the historical accuracy.

Homegoing symbolises the deceased people going to heaven and glory (their eternal home). It became a traditional celebration of African-American and black-Canadian people, showing love and strength in the face of loss.This book, Homegoing, is based on the Atlantic slave trade of Ghana and writes about slavery in the past to racism in the present time. The story spans a few centuries and includes a generation of tales. Two sisters, Esi and Effia, unaware of each other's existence, take on two different paths of fate. While Esi is sold into slavery in exchange for goods, Effia gets married to a slave trader. When Effia is spending her happily married life in the castle with James, she is oblivious to the cage downstairs that holds many enslaved Black people, including Esi and her son. Both their lives take twists and turns, none better than the other. No matter how and where they lived, their skin colour always seemed to be a matter of concern for people around them.PROS: A great historical fiction with a multigenerational theme providing insights into the slave trade of Ghana.The book is in multiple POVs, and every character in the book is covered in a separate chapter. There is no single main character in the book. It seems to me that their shared identity is the main character.Each chapter felt like a separate short story for each character, yet they remained connected throughout. Every person described in the book left an everlasting impression in my mind. I particularly loved the ending so much. The way their fates met and the detailing of the impact of generational trauma on each and every individual was too perfect.The writing and language were so good that I never realised I had finished the book in two days.Though I made their family tree on my own, the book also has an useful representation which helps the readers connect with the characters.CONS: I needed more details on some characters, obviously because their portions were exceptionally stunning but over too soon.This book has given me enough reasons to explore more multigenerational books, and I recommend this one to all who want the same.

It was for a gift, but it arrived in perfect shape

The more detached writing style of the first few chapters mirrored the events Effie and Esi for example undergo and their internal traumas, creating a sense of passive shock and emotional separation. Then as the story grew the emotional complexity of the narration developed, enabling the reader to connect more and more with the families.I felt the flow between the characters as we passed down the lineages was subtle but effective, giving each character their own space and presence to be an individual whilst maintaining an essence of heritage and that ‘part of something bigger’ feeling, as well as enabling relatively seamless chapter continuation despite big time jumps.The pacing of the chapters was impressive, covering such a large time span whilst still allowing the reader to connect with each character’s personal storyline against the backdrop of wider contexts such as colonialism, slavery, independence and discrimination.I will admit though there were times I felt cut short, wishing for more on specific characters, such as Quey and Kojo. The writing style made sense as the snapshot view into each life in a way reflected the fragility of life relating to colonialism and slavery. Maybe not a criticism but a request therefore, I would have enjoyed perhaps an entire book reading about individual characters in further depth.It was especially interesting to me reading about the conflicts and relations between tribes in the first few chapters. I think in many school lesson scenarios, a common misconception is the complete lack of attention towards the complexities and richness of Africa’s tribal communities at the time, regarded simplistically as ‘Africans taken by Europeans to be slaves’, portraying them as a singular entity. And so this book really captured these intricacies and developing relationships amongst the Fante and Asante for example, and between specific communities and the British/Dutch and the different roles different groups played.I felt the ending was done well, and it made me just sit and hold the book for a while, processing everything that happened and simply how talented Yaa Gyasi is. I can’t recommend this book enough! If I was the sort of reader that tabbed pages, this was the sort of book that would be full of tabs – so many moments I read a sentence or a page and think, wow, so well written and thought-provoking.

Imprescindible para entender una parte fundamental de la historia negra y afroamericana. Imprescindible porque es una lectura accesible a todo el mundo y deberia ser un basico a leer cuanto antes mejor...