I would give this 4.5 stars if possible. I listened to Chu reading her piece and at an extremely brief 2 hours was able to do it all in one listen. I’I would give this 4.5 stars if possible. I listened to Chu reading her piece and at an extremely brief 2 hours was able to do it all in one listen. I’d avoided it for a while thinking it would be more jargony and theoretically dense than it is; I’m still in a weird headspace about theory after too much grad school. But it was fantastic. I need to listen to it a couple more times and I’m not gonna do a lot review here bc I need to listen to it a couple more times; that said, it squares so much with my understanding of my own sexual and gender identity over the years I can’t help but think Chu may definitely be on the right track towards a more nuanced and paradoxically empathetic theory of gender and desire. Half a star removed because she doesn’t incorporate trans men into her analysis at all and I’m too lazy right now to try to figure out where trans men fit into her analysis myself ...more
Maybe I am guilty of barely ever reading a book I don’t like but this book was HAUNTING. I apparently have a thing for Russian novels and while this wMaybe I am guilty of barely ever reading a book I don’t like but this book was HAUNTING. I apparently have a thing for Russian novels and while this was not a Russian novel it is set in a part of Russia I knew nothing about, which was gratifying and made me say dumb things out loud like “books can take you anywhere!” In all seriousness though, it was an actual page turner. ...more
Possibly my favorite book of 2019. Was basically sobbing by the end. Masterfully woven stories brought down through the generations in a fashion a lotPossibly my favorite book of 2019. Was basically sobbing by the end. Masterfully woven stories brought down through the generations in a fashion a lot of books try to achieve but usually miss. Though you only spend a chapter proper with each character, Gyasi manages to give a full picture of each character's complexity, which is rounded out by what you learn about their ancestors in preceding chapters. Homegoing captures the complexity of the legacies of slavery and their aftermaths without compromising tough subjects (inter-tribal slave selling on the Gold Coast); the effects of white colonial brutality and how trauma accrues to bodies and memories is never far from the forefront. But as horrifying as so much of this novel is, Gyasi renders them triumphant, each and every one.
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