Review: Homegoing

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

His grandmother didn't speak at first, just watched him. "We are all weak most of the time," she said finally. "Look at the baby. Born to his mother, he learns how to eat from her, how to walk, talk, hunt, run. He does not invent new ways. He just continues with the old. This is how we all come to the world, James. Weak and needy, desperate to learn how to be a person." She smiled at him. "But if we do not like the person we have learned to be, should we just sit in front of our fufu, doing nothing? I think, James, that maybe it is possible to make a new way."

I'm overwhelmed, to say the least. Two highly emotional, deeply unsettling books in a row have left me feeling wretched and wrung out, craving something light-hearted and silly. But I am so thankful to have read this story, stories I should say, no matter how disturbing and unsettling they and their entirely living characters have made me feel. Their ghosts will walk with me for a while, I believe, and even then I don't think I'll be able to forget them. How can I when all around us the remnants of our violent and terrible history still exist today? An incredible piece of work from Gyasi, and so important for this world.
4.5 / 5 stars.

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