Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

33 reviews

lauriej's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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chsm8's review against another edition

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

4.75


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readingwithgoose's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75


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laura_cat's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I wouldn’t have read this book if I had known about the evangelical Christianity and testing on animals themes. It simply was not enjoyable to read.  

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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
A beautiful and painful book that demands the reader's full attention. Gyasi doesn't lay things out A then B then C; instead, she gives us a puzzle of C then A then Q and trusts that we as readers are clever enough and paying enough attention to put the pieces together.

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kibbles15's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Despite the fact that the book reads at a slower pace, it is very well written.  The author was especially good at expressing the emotions of the story. I found myself feeling sadness, joy, anger, heartbreak, etc...right along with the main character.  The plot is heartbreaking, but it is an interesting exploration on finding the balance between a Belief in God and Science. 

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Title: Transcendent Kingdom
Author: Yaa Gyasi
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.50
Pub Date: August 31, 2020

T H R E E • W O R D S

Captivating • Heart-wrenching • Introspective

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Transcendent Kingdom came highly recommended to me by several book friends, yet I knew because of my deeply personal connection to the content that I would need to be in the right frame of mind when I finally picked it up. This awareness helped create a safe, deeply emotional reading experience for me that I am grateful for.

What an absolutely powerful book! Yaa Gyasi delivers a raw and compelling take on how science and faith merge and diverge. Written from the first person perspective with short chapters, it read more like a memoir, allowing a deep look into Gifty's internal battle in her search for understanding. Snippets from childhood and the past, really brought each of the characters to life, making them real and relatable. The writing is profoundly beautiful. Every word, every sentence has it's place. The science is easily digestible and the religions aspect aren't preachy. In all honesty, the author tackles mental illness and addiction with grace and respect, while also exploring themes of love and loss, of healing and belonging, and of family and identity. Underneath some of the bigger themes also lies an exploration of the immigrant experience, including racism.

There are so many emotional and thought-provoking passages sprinkled throughout the story, a few of which I have chosen to highlight below. However, it is how in the end the reader is left without answers that truly sticks with me. Isn't that the whole point? It's a testament to how we can search for answers, yet there are some things we can never know and therein lies the beauty of being alive.

Every now and then there is a book comes along and burrows itself deep into your soul and changes your perception, Transcendent Kingdom was one of those books for me. It is a book I will revisit in the future. One that contemplates what it means to live without answers. And one I hope is an invitation for readers to consider people living with mental illness and addiction with more understanding, empathy, and compassion. I will definitely be looking to get my hands on a copy of Gyasi's debut, Homecoming, and look forward to hearing about future books from this incredibly talented author.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers who love profound writing
• anyone looking for a thought-provoking read
• book clubs

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"The truth is we don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t even know the questions we need to ask in order to find out, but when we learn one tiny little thing, a dim light comes on in a dark hallway, and suddenly a new question appears."

"Nothing teaches you the true nature of your friendships like a sudden death, worse still, a death that’s shrouded in shame."

"If I've thought of my mother as callous, and many times I have, then it is important to remember what a callus is: the hardened tissue that forms over a wound."

"What I can say for certain is that there is no case study in the world that could capture the whole animal of my brother, that could show how smart and kind and generous he was, how much he wanted to get better, how much he wanted to live. Forget for a moment what he looked like on paper, and instead see him as he was in all of his glory, in all of his beauty. It’s true that for years before he died, I would look at his face and think, 'What a pity, what a waste'. But the waste was my own, the waste was what I missed out on whenever I looked at him and saw just his addiction." 

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mair_mcc's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Alabama. The writing style of this book was nothing short of moving. The multiple topics, all very difficult, were woven together in a way that made them interesting, gripping, heartbreaking & relatable all at the same time. I cannot wait to get my hands on more of this author's work.

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abithoughtful's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I loved that this took for granted that religion and science aren't incompatible and instead takes as its central thesis the idea that they're sort of... identical? Miraculous about love and grief and being open about the dark questions you hold deep in your heart. 

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grboph's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-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? Yes

5.0

This was one of the best books I have ever read, and certainly my favorite that I've read so far this year. I was initially intrigued by the neuroscience and religion aspects of it, but then the characters and story completely pulled me in and kept me invested until the very end. It was definitely a very sad story and doesn't have a happy ending per se, but it is still very hopeful (as the main plot revolves around Gifty's desire to fix the issues that afflicted her mother and her brother). As a sort-of nerd, I also loved all of the musings on the brain and a lot of them beautifully captured the reasons behind why I also want to study neuroscience. I am also very fascinated by religion and the impacts it can leave on people, so I loved reading about the way this affected Gifty as well as her family members' experiences with addiction and mental illness. I also liked that much of the story was just Gifty's stream of consciousness - that is not something I typically like, but Gyasi is such a wonderful writer that this aspect added to the depth of the story in this case. Overall, this was a very impactful story that I will remember reading for a very long time. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in neuroscience or religion, or just anyone who is looking for a good emotional, character-driven book to read.

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