Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

58 reviews

sparklefarm's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Really incredible.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Excrement, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation

Moderate: Child death, Infidelity, and War

Minor: Homophobia

jessieleeh's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Slavery, Violence, Excrement, and Colonisation

Moderate: Child abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Rape, and Fire/Fire injury

minnow's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-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

4.75

A stunning, heartbreaking book. This book follows two branches of a family throughout generations, telling heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story. We see slavery at its peak from the viewpoints of both the slaves and the African slavers, and then we follow the echoes of those experiences through multiple generations. The story is lush and vivid, graphic scenes are delivered with an edge but never go too far. 

I deducted a partial star only because there is one storyline that was paced too slowly, in my opinion. I found myself caring a little less about that character and the story dragged in that part. All other storylines were perfectly paced and engaging.

The ending of this story is beautiful, and very satisfying. All in all, a masterpiece of a book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Infidelity, Misogyny, Vomit, and Abandonment

Minor: Bullying

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

zara89's review against another edition

emotional sad fast-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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Colonisation

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Trafficking, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

ceedy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery

Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Racism, and Abandonment

cecereads__'s review against another edition

5.0

This book was an absolute epic. The ambition and talent that went into this - and a debut as well!
It was gut-wrenching and tragic and criminally cruel, and heart-achingly stunning/heavy all at the same time.
Full of individual experiences - all including prejudice, discrimination and injustice - of about 250 years and seven generations. The subtlety of our world’s history and relationship with racism lives on to this day, and we cannot deny that or deny the history lesson that this book provides so vividly and thoroughly.

Favourite stories/chapters out of the 14 would have to be Ness, Kojo and H.
I need this to be required reading. But I also acknowledge the very heavy subject of colonialism and white superiority complexes. It is confronting but also our reality… 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, and War

chelle22's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, and Classism

readingwithcoffee's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

This author could not go a single chapter with talking about women’s breasts and that’s before the one chapter where a man uses at least a. Paragraph to describe the ass of the woman he married and after she is kidnapped into slavery after the fugitive slave act is passed he literally sees her in other women regardless of ass based on if they have a big ass to the point a woman catches his attention to slap him for staring. On that end while  a book that discusses Africans who will become Ghanaians and Americans will cover and discuss violence of all sorts into black Women especially sexual a lot of the violence to women in the book felt contrived and not taken that seriously or confused inherently for depth.

 Many of the chapters felt like they were shoehorning American milestones or historical events or topics surrounding racism. As well as in my opinion using Ghanaian faith and religion at multiple points it mystically move a plot point forward the author clearly wrote herself into a corner for. I hated the mother burning all of her children but one alive scene in a dream, bc I don’t think the book took the murder of the daughters seriously especially to insist spirits made her do it when she literally did not know she did it. Also at times her protagonists had very ahistorical social norms where they’d either be the most special or educated or the most suffering or ostracized person among their environmental or all those things at once while clearly trying to represent general Ghanaian and Black American history it was very lazy and off putting to see constantly. 

After reading it I’m not surprised to see a lot of reviews by Ghanaian nationals disliking the book or thinking it’s at least a mess of the Ghanaian cutler and history it tries to represent. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, and Drug use

Minor: Infidelity

summeryoder's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

It's an amazingly well crafted novel that spans decades and generations. While each family member's story is captivating, it's a bit disorienting to leave a character after just one chapter, never to come back to them. At times it felt that some of the brutality and sexual content veered into gratuitousness rather than being a necessary storytelling vehicle. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Racism, Slavery, and Colonisation

Moderate: Infidelity, Rape, and Sexual content