bkwrm1317's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Gyasi’s Transcendant Kingdom is a tale of family, heartbreak, grief, and finding answers in science to the illness of addiction.
Our protagonist (Gifty), a Ghanaian-American scientist doing post-doc work at Stanford looks back on her childhood in Alabama with her brother Nana and her mother. Her father (nicknamed the Chin Chin Man), leaves them to go back to Ghana when Gifty is young.
Gifty’s brother Nana is a sports star growing up, until he hurts his ankle playing HS basketball and goes from Huntsville, Alabama’s high school ball star town hero to an OxyContin addict when it’s prescribed to him during his recovery. His addiction leads to his eventual overdose and death, and pushes Gifty from an evangelical youth to a scientist studying the reward pathway in the brain to find answers she didn’t get from her brother, and that her mom was unable to give through her own grief and depression.
Hard but hopeful, this is a well written exploration of forgiving ourselves and our loved ones, the ravages of addiction and the opioid epidemic of the US, and the African immigrant experience, as well as reflections on what is bigger than/beyond us, and the comfort religion can provide in the wake of grief and loss.
Our protagonist (Gifty), a Ghanaian-American scientist doing post-doc work at Stanford looks back on her childhood in Alabama with her brother Nana and her mother. Her father (nicknamed the Chin Chin Man), leaves them to go back to Ghana when Gifty is young.
Gifty’s brother Nana is a sports star growing up, until he hurts his ankle playing HS basketball and goes from Huntsville, Alabama’s high school ball star town hero to an OxyContin addict when it’s prescribed to him during his recovery. His addiction leads to his eventual overdose and death, and pushes Gifty from an evangelical youth to a scientist studying the reward pathway in the brain to find answers she didn’t get from her brother, and that her mom was unable to give through her own grief and depression.
Hard but hopeful, this is a well written exploration of forgiving ourselves and our loved ones, the ravages of addiction and the opioid epidemic of the US, and the African immigrant experience, as well as reflections on what is bigger than/beyond us, and the comfort religion can provide in the wake of grief and loss.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Death, Mental illness, and Grief
jasmine_peacock's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Drug use, and Drug abuse
hannahreflects's review against another edition
dark
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
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A very quiet, gently-paced book, yet incredibly raw and dark. I haven't read many books like it, and I was unfamiliar with many of the themes and experiences explored throughout. Beautiful, hard-hitting reflections on family, grief, mental health, community, identity, and the meaning of life. Yaa Gyasi's writing is incredible, but if you're looking for a fast-paced, plot-heavy read, this is not the one for you. I have to admit I was feeling a little unsatisfied at the end - can't really articulate why - but it was quite the emotional journey and I certainly don't regret reading it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Death, and Mental illness
franceskatharine's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Addiction, and Abandonment
mxpringle's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
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
5.0
This book talked about really hard topics, but it was beautiful enough to where that was completely okay and warranted. It had such a unique reflection on both the value and harms of religion to a person's life that I found so inspiring. All of the hard topics that were brought up were like experiencing them the way real people experience them, not merely for a plot point, but intentionally crafting those as background to a person's character. This is the best book I have read in a long time. It was so stunningly beautiful that I'm honestly left a little bit unmoored after finishing it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Abandonment, Death of parent, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, Grief, Drug use, Addiction, Suicide, Racism, and Alcohol
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Racism, and Sexual content
thisreadingcorner's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
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? Yes
5.0
Transcendent Kingdom follows Gifty, a neuroscience PhD student doing research and reflecting on the ways in which immigration, addiction, abandonment, and grief have and continue to shape her view of the world. Although we see her in present day, the book toggles back and forth constantly to years past, scaffolding the honest reflections Gifty shares.
My favorite thing about this book is that there is no nobility in suffering. The humiliation of African immigrants (Ghanaian in this case) taking on poorly paid work with deeply racist Americans isn’t remade into sainthood. The family that gets left behind doesn’t take it on the chin. Addiction doesn’t magically get cured or inspire a lofty goal to save the world. A mother’s trauma doesn’t reduce the harm she leaves in her wake. None of them are perfect, all of them are real. So real in fact that I was taken aback by the kinship I felt to these fictional characters with lives so different from my own.
Gifty’s religious devolution is at the core of the book, the impact of grief on a young woman asking why? She sees glaring gaps in a doctrine sometimes merciful and sometimes vengeful, but even her work doesn’t offer her the clarity she seeks. That her faith is so tied to her relationship with her mother only complicates their dynamic when grief devastated the careful balancing act they both lived in. The stories around Gifty’s mother - her calls home, her patients, and her tumultuous mental health are gripping, in part because of the parallels to a common immigrant experience of starting over, but also because it held space for a mother’s humanity and a child’s pain.
I admired her commitment to her work and willingness to keep trying, even if only as a smoke screen. I empathized with her delayed awakenings in human connection, her constant daydreaming. I was relived to see the version of her we get in the end, fully actualized and moving forward, ambiguity still front and center.
I admired her commitment to her work and willingness to keep trying, even if only as a smoke screen. I empathized with her delayed awakenings in human connection, her constant daydreaming. I was relived to see the version of her we get in the end, fully actualized and moving forward, ambiguity still front and center.
I look forward to more stories like hers, maybe even more ambiguous. Gyasi is a master writer, the words jumped off the page for me, and I found myself grateful for a story so rooted in the grey.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Death of parent, Addiction, and Racial slurs
tamanim's review against another edition
emotional
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
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction
stellaperlic's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
An amazing story that read like a memoir. I thought Yaa Gysai was able to capture very complex feelings in a beautiful way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, and Racism
pandact's review against another edition
emotional
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
4.5
This book nailed my feelings with scientific precision, and Gyasi simultaneously leaves room for different kinds of faith. This reflective fine-tuning happened to be exactly what I was looking for, plus the slightly lonely and queer first-generation bildungsroman. I'd read a whole book where they dive into ethical and religious questions!
I hope it's also impactful for others who read it, and it shares similar themes with Freshwater, Liturgists, Semler, and the X-files.
Spoilers in tags
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Addiction, Drug use, Grief, Death, Drug abuse, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Racism
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Medical content, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Child abuse and Animal cruelty
Spoiler
Also I thought the ending made sense, almost like when a documentary flashes forward before the credits. The mother still wrapped up the emotional arc better than I expected from getting it spoiled in reviews!flykites's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
All you have to do is watch a child ride her bike directly into a brick wall or jump from the tallest branch of sycamore tree to know that we humans are reckless with our bodies, reckless with our lives, for no other reason than that we want to know what would happen, what it might feel like to brush up against death, to run right up to the edge of our lives, which is, in some ways, to live fully.
<Spoiler>
I enjoyed this book when I could read it for long sweeping spells but I felt ill invested at such pivotal parts. I think the passage of the novel in.which gifty recalls her brother's addiction and now we went from being this pro basketball player with all the opportunities to a man riddled with addiction, how isolated her family felt.in that moment, how people who praised him and his ability on the court suddenly could not care less and tied his rumoured drug addiction down to the fact he was black and not a whole other crisis in itself is so harrowingly done but the novel relied too much on flashbacks of memory that it was taking me out of the story and not showing me enough of gifty in other moments.
</Spoiler>
</Spoiler>
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction and Mental illness
Moderate: Xenophobia