Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

192 reviews

fionamh's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, and Trafficking

bmunsh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Incredibly challenging book. Only reasons I took off points were: 

1) the formatting, as a collection of short stories, was a powerful tool. However, as it progressed, it did feel like it fizzled out slightly. The emotion of the first few chapters was so fresh and jarring that it felt like the latter chapters couldn’t quite keep up. 
2) I get that it’s a novel and novels need interesting things to happen, but it felt slightly non-immersive that each character was so spectacular and present for so many famous things. 
3) why so much description of their breasts? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

3littlewordz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Slow burn at the beginning, but my goodness, once I got to Ness's story, I couldn't put it down! Such an engrossing story that explored the generational trauma that slavery inflicted. It was easy to identify the common familial thread through several generations. It was heartbreaking at times but always hopeful. I would have loved to see each generation more fleshed out for a truly epic novel - I love big books, I can't lie! I'm very ready to Yaa Gyasi's second offering. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Slavery, and War

gabbylikestoread's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual assault

thursdd4y's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

hannah_the_bookworm's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Excrement, Trafficking, and Colonisation

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Medical content, Grief, and Pregnancy

alishaabrahamsreads's review against another edition

4.0

i kinda feel like marjorie in the 2nd to last chapter when mrs. pinkston asks her if she likes or loves a book. if she can feel a book "deep within her" 

i think, unfortunately i only like this one. i can acknowledge the absolute mastery of craft Yaa Gyasi holds and the way her characters feel real and layered. but for some reason i didn't feel it "deep within me" -- maybe bc each ch is something new and newly horrific as well, but something just didn't click with me

also please look into TWs bc each chapter has something triggering in it (based on history, real world scenerios) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Police brutality, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

merakiforest's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Body shaming, Child death, Gore, and Mental illness

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Infertility, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

astralfeline's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

This book was so well done. Some of my favorite aspects of the book are the way it's organized, the way the characters lives are connected, and just how well it shows how impactful and systemic things like racism and slavery can be that it continues to affect families generations later. I loved the questions included in the end because it really made me reflect on things I hadn't even thought about, like the significance that names hold. I almost wish we'd been able to see more of each character, because we really only saw small glimpses of their experiences, but I did love seeing how later generations interacted with or talked about the earlier characters. Read this for a book club and we have had some great discussion so far. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, and Colonisation

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Excrement, and War

Minor: Child death, Police brutality, and Fire/Fire injury

bigolscrewup's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

The family is like the forest: if you are outside it is dense; if you are inside you see that each tree has its own position

Forgiveness, they shouted, all the while committing their wrongs

5/5🌟

How can a debut novel be this good ? Honestly the thing that surprises me more is the fact that it's a short book ( only 300 or so pages ) even though the story spans over two centuries, exploring each sister's family through the years. When I first started the book, I was sceptical, because it has a lot of characters and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep all the characters and their origin in place, but the way it was written, like a collection of short stories all related to previous generation made reading this book enjoyable.

Among all the books I've read in this particular genre, I loved reading it the most and that's all down to author's storytelling and the research behind it. I was able to learn more about slave trade and how it started out in countries like Ghana and the relationship dynamics between the slavers, the middle man and the British.

Especially with Esi's family line, It was disheartening, reading about the cruel laws that permitted the enslavement and wrongful imprisonment of innocent people in those times and it is heartbreaking to acknowledge the fact that it still persists today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and War