Reviews with content warning for Torture - Vända hem

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Vända hem by Yaa Gyasi

106 reviews

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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hannah_the_bookworm's review against another edition

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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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megelizabeth's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

"...everything was everything. Everything bore the weight of everything else."

This is an absolute masterpiece. It's sprawling and all-encompassing whilst at the same time being deeply, deeply intimate. Naturally I connected to some characters and storylines more than I did others, but it was just such a privilege to be able to get to know so many members of one family over so many centuries. Yaa Gyasi does so much with so comparatively few pages for the multitudes this book contains, and it never feels as if anyone or anything isn't given the time and space and exploration they deserve. I am completely astounded that this is a debut novel.

I'm honestly struggling to form coherent thoughts but this just completely hit me on a level I was not expecting and I am just absolutely obsessed with it. It has so many important things to say about ancestry, history, race, relationships, and so much more, and I honestly cannot recommend it highly enough (but do be aware that it's extremely heavy - pls check content warnings <3).

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cecereads__'s review against another edition

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4.5

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 that’s how reality works…

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chelle22's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense

5.0

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itsmaryssae's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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melnao1's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I recently read Transcendent Kingdon by Yaa Gyasi and knew immediately that I had to get into some of her other work. This book was even better than her second which is insane for a debut. In this novel she explores the effects of slavery and institutionalized racism for both the enslaved and for some of the perpetuators through stories that connected via a common descendant. Yaa Gyasi did an amazing job of writing about characters in vastly different time periods and lives while depicting Ghanian culture and customs of the Ashante tribe in accurate light for a historical fiction novel. I loved how the common thread holding all these stories together were family stories and the beauty in how they pieced into each other, even when the subject matter was heartbreaking. This book was magical for all the reasons you don't think stories coming out of such misery would be.

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