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A review by emmareadstoomuch
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
5.0
Why are five-star reviews so much harder to write than negative ones?!
All I want to do is say “This book is perfect. Read it. Bye.”
https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/the-best-books-of-the-worst-year/
Anything more than that is just extraneous.
Okay, I do also want to say that this is such a beautiful and painful representation of how white America has stolen the stories of Black people. As the reader of this story is able to learn the story of these bloodlines over the course of 300 years, constructing a narrative from ancestry to the present, so must the reader be aware of how this history has been kept from the very people who are living it. No character in this story is able to have the breadth of knowledge that any reader does, and that is not only because of the slave trade but because of the school-to-prison pipeline, because of the war on drugs, because of the racism that is present in our society to this day.
If you are able to read this book without awareness of your accountability in that process, read it again.
Also, I can mention that even though we rarely follow one character for more than 20 or so pages, nearly all of them manage to be full and real and unforgettable. (@ authors who manage to write 300 pages about one character who I still can’t be bothered to care about - you are ON NOTICE.)
And lastly, I will write the four nonsense stream of thought sentences I jotted down upon finishing this:
“This is just so gorgeous”
“The first 5 star I’ve given in months”
“You will never ever read a book like this ever”
“What a gift”
Bottom line: Required reading.
---------------
pre-review
“Originally, he'd wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H's life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H's story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he'd have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He'd have to talk about Harlem, And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father's heroin addiction - the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the '60s, wouldn't he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the '80s? And if he wrote about crack, he'd inevitably be writing, to, about the "war on drugs." And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he'd be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he'd gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he'd get so angry that he'd slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they'd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.”
review to come / 5 stars
---------------
currently-reading updates
150,000 ratings with an average of 4.43..........
if i don't like this book i'm canceling myself.
---
i am spending this month reading books by Black authors. please join me!
book 1: The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
book 2: Homegoing
All I want to do is say “This book is perfect. Read it. Bye.”
https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/the-best-books-of-the-worst-year/
Anything more than that is just extraneous.
Okay, I do also want to say that this is such a beautiful and painful representation of how white America has stolen the stories of Black people. As the reader of this story is able to learn the story of these bloodlines over the course of 300 years, constructing a narrative from ancestry to the present, so must the reader be aware of how this history has been kept from the very people who are living it. No character in this story is able to have the breadth of knowledge that any reader does, and that is not only because of the slave trade but because of the school-to-prison pipeline, because of the war on drugs, because of the racism that is present in our society to this day.
If you are able to read this book without awareness of your accountability in that process, read it again.
Also, I can mention that even though we rarely follow one character for more than 20 or so pages, nearly all of them manage to be full and real and unforgettable. (@ authors who manage to write 300 pages about one character who I still can’t be bothered to care about - you are ON NOTICE.)
And lastly, I will write the four nonsense stream of thought sentences I jotted down upon finishing this:
“This is just so gorgeous”
“The first 5 star I’ve given in months”
“You will never ever read a book like this ever”
“What a gift”
Bottom line: Required reading.
---------------
pre-review
“Originally, he'd wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H's life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H's story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he'd have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He'd have to talk about Harlem, And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father's heroin addiction - the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the '60s, wouldn't he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the '80s? And if he wrote about crack, he'd inevitably be writing, to, about the "war on drugs." And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he'd be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he'd gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he'd get so angry that he'd slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they'd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.”
review to come / 5 stars
---------------
currently-reading updates
150,000 ratings with an average of 4.43..........
if i don't like this book i'm canceling myself.
---
i am spending this month reading books by Black authors. please join me!
book 1: The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
book 2: Homegoing