Book Review _ Homegoing

I'd like to start things off with an introduction. Hello! My name is Analiese and I'll be taking over the Book Review at Hackley Public Library. I hope you enjoy my recommendations and thoughts on some of my favorite reads. Now, enough about me. Let's get on to the real reason you're here, the books!   Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi may not be the newest in the stacks, being published in 2016, but if you haven't read it already be prepared for an emotional ride through history.  The story begins with two half sisters, born in eighteenth-century Ghana, who grew up in separate villages unknowing of each others existence. One sister is married to an Englishman while the other is sold with thousands of others in the slave trade. This tale shows the different sides of the slave trade from its beginning roots in Africa, those who were taken and sold in America and those who stayed. Even though the struggles these two women face could be a novel itself, the story instead jumps to the next generation. With a snippet from the life of the next person in line, the author expresses how each of  the decedents had been affected by the history of the slave trade. I love that each character has his or her own separate story, which Gyasi wrote beautifully, linking them together so that they almost read as a short story collection. Yet, there are clear themes, tie-ins, and reoccurring symbols which keep the reader tied to the ancestry line.  Although some parts are difficult to read because the of implacable sorrow faced by these characters, Gyasi has given a heroic voice to suppressed people and parts of history that aren't discussed in most classrooms.

Homegoing By Gyasi, Yaa 2017-05 - Vintage 9781101971062 Check Our Catalog Winner of the PEN/ Hemingway Award Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard Award A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Time, Oprah.com, Harper's Bazaar, San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Esquire, Elle, Paste, Entertainment …More

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The Underground Railroad By Whitehead, Colson 2016-08 - Doubleday Books 9780385542364 Check Our Catalog Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among …More