Book Review: HomeGoing by Yaa Gyasi

If you're looking for a Hollywood blockbuster story line , with a somewhat happy ending despite the sad reality of slavery, this is not the novel for you. This book is raw. It does not sugar coat the slave experience or how expendable their lives where.

I took me more than a month to read this book because it was emotionally tough to get through the chapters. I had to put it down several times and walk away from it but I think that's the whole point. That this was a horrible time in american history and not some far fetched horror movie.

If you have any compassion in you, it's suppose to make you feel that sad.

Even though on one end it's a work of fiction, it is still a very fair depiction of what the slaves went through. Somewhere in America, someone's great grand relatives went through this and this may as well have been their biography.

This story has no happy ending and in reality when you look at the black american experience today and what's going on the African continent, there is still no happy ending for both .

One continent is still struggling with the aftermaths of colonialism while African Americans are still struggling as a community to rebuild/heal from the lingering psychological scars left behind by slavery. And in all fairness, it's hard to do that when the world refuses to acknowledge that this scars exists or assumes there is some sort of deadline on when the healing process is suppose to end. 

Some psychological wounds, you never completely heal from, no matter the amount of therapy you go through. The horror of the experience lingers with you for the rest of your life and the same can be said for the black american experience.

On a positive note if any, this book left me hopeless for america and hopeful for our Continent. We all need to go back home and make Africa great again!