Review: Homegoing

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

READ THIS BOOK!!! ALL OF YOU!!!

This is a stunning debut--can't wait to read the next book from . I've always been a sucker for historical family fiction--I want to know where people come from and how they get where they are. I'm fascinated by genealogy and how it effects where we end up.

Hundreds of years ago, Effia and Esi, two half-sisters, are born in Ghana. With the tangled history of the Fante and Asante people and the ugly world of the slave trade, they and their ancestors lead very different lives. I listened to the audiobook (which was freaking amazing--Dominic Hoffman is an awesome narrator) and would have liked to flip through the print book a bit to refresh my memory of the family trees of the characters, but I managed just fine. From coal mining in the South to the Great Migration to Harlem jazz clubs, the narratives tell the varied stories of how Africans came to the U.S., and how they became Americans.

Perfect reading for this election season. It's beautiful, inspiring, and a darn good listen/read--it's going to sweep a lot of awards, I hope.

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