I loved ‘Homegoing’ and Gyasi’s writing here is just as beautiful. I’ve been waiting patiently for the UK publication of this book- thankful to get this on Netgalley a couple of months early. The story of Gifty, child of Ghanaian immigrants as she tries to make sense of family trauma , addiction, mental illness through her work on lab mice. Science v faith is a major theme but there are many others. It was just a lovely poignant read.

Your patience will be rewarded.
The only shared link between this novel and Homegoing is the strong writing skill of the author. Gifty, a Ghanian-American daughter of immigrants, is telling her story of living a first generation immigrant life growing up in Alabama with her older brother Nana. Nana is the all-American athlete with a promising future until one innocuous accident starts a chain of events that will influence not only Gifty's future career choices but her relationship with her mother and any other personal relationships.
The story unfolds slowly and you have to be patient and let Gifty as the narrator open up to you as she starts to trust the reader with her story. The use of humour (her mum is code named the Black Mamba) is well-controlled and adds warmth, great insight into religion and intelligent and empathetic observations on choice and addiction.
This is a beautiful and lyrical novel. I am one of a minority who didn't rave about Homegoing. I feel differently about Transcendent Kingdom. This deserves much praise for the restraint with which this story is told. It could have been over embellished in the hands of a lesser author.
[This review was also posted on Amazon.]

This book gets the easiest 5 stars I’ve given for a long time. After loving Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi I was so excited to be approved for an advanced copy of her newest book Transcendent Kingdom.

Gifty was brought up an Evangelical Christian in Alabama with her Ghanian family, her father left them and returned to Ghana, her brother dies of an overdose and her mother enters a crippling depression. At 11 years old she is sent to Ghana while her mother recovers. Now a PhD student studying neuroscience, specifically addiction, she is trying to understand why her brother was taken and why her mother is trapped in depression again. She explores her faith as well as her neuroscience knowledge whilst recalling her past, trying to find the answer within God and/or science will make everything better.

The writing in this is so clever, it’s layered, it’s informative and offers insight and understanding to a number of issues. I felt as the reader that I was following Gifty’s trail of thought as she recalled events from the past and weighed up why God and her pastor hadn’t helped and why science had failed to provide answers.

Gifty’s need to fix her family is so despairingly strong, that it overtakes her life. She can’t open up to friends or form relationships and as you read her journey, trying to piece everything together for everyone else, you become more and more aware that Gifty herself is broken and struggling. When I read the following ‘“No I’m not ok”, I said, and I wondered when the last time I’d said that was. Had I ever said it, even to God?’ I burst into tears for this incredibly kind and vulnerable character.

I have no criticism whatsoever. This book is phenomenal.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinukbooks for the pleasure of reading this before it’s 4th March publication date

I loved it! A brilliant, authentic piece of writing from Yaa Gyasi, simply wonderful!
I could not put this down. The themes of religion and faith were handled with beautiful delicacy, so much so that I was able to explore a real depth of the main character, fully understanding how she's feeling and reacting at any given time. For a book that touched on so many difficult elements; addiction, loss, racism and mental health, I was impressed by how well each was handled. At no time feel as if the writer had simply tied to include as many 'issues' as possible (as unfortunately is the case with so many other books) Transcendent Kingdom was a complete emotional rollercoaster, and I adored every minute!

As a huge fan of Homegoing, I had high expectations for this second novel from the same author, Yaa Gyasi. My initial reaction, therefore, when it became clear that this was to be a very different book, was disappointment. The settings and themes are different, and we are given an intense focus on a single character rather than a sprawling epic across the generations. And yet, despite the major differences, Gyasi pulls it off, showing a breadth of talent that must have other authors seething with envy.

We follow Gifty, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants in the USA, and her difficult experiences as she grows up into early adulthood. We are with her through grief and childhood trauma, experience of addiction and depression, and as she searches for answers through an uneasy combination of religious faith and hard science. As a neuroscientist, she is quite literally seeking solutions for the causes of the suffering those closest to her have experienced.

On each of these themes, Transcendent Kingdom equals anything else I have read. We feel her grief and her pain, we see how this drives her on in some ways and holds her back in others as she struggles to deal with the long-term consequences. And the highly-charged topic of science and religion is handled with incredible deftness and sensitivity.

The subject matter mean it can be emotionally difficult reading - this is not a thriller or a romance - but the simplicity and beauty of the writing make it easy reading in a different sense. To handle these themes so well can only have been achieved through meticulous crafting and re-crafting of prose, and yet it flows so smoothly, like the words just poured out onto the page. A remarkable achievement.

I've been desperately looking forward to reading more of Yaa Gyasi's work, and her latest novel, Transcendent Kingdom, did not disappoint.

Through Gifty, the daughter of a Ghanain immigrant family who moved to Alabama before she was born, we are taken on an emotional journey. It's some time since a book hit me in the heart quite as strongly as this one. Now a young lady researching for her PhD in neuroscience, Gifty relives everything that has taken her to that point in her life - growing up in a religious family, her brother a promising basketball start who becomes addicted to drugs, her mother suffering from depression, the racism that confronts them in their town of Huntsville, Alabama, and Gifty's quest for answers.

Gyasi's prose is wonderful and, despite the serious issues addressed, it is easy to read. Gifty is a character that I immediately felt connected to, drawn into her family and caring about them all. I became so invested that at times I found myself holding my breath, fearful of what the next few lines might reveal.

Quite simply, this is an incredible novel. It's different from her debut, Homegoing, and I really admire that Gyasi has such range to her writing. It's a story that will stay with me and a book that I will be recommending to all who will listen.

I really loved Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and felt that Transcendent Kingdom had the same engaging writing and I really felt for the character Gifty. Not sure why I just didn't feel hugely connected to the story even though it was very thought-provoking and emotional. I felt certain topics like addition could have been explored more in-depth but parts about her Ghanian heritage were explored really well. Despite this, it's still beautifully written and interesting.

I immediately wanted to read this based on the author alone. I LOVED Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and had high hopes for Transcendent Kingdom.

This is an intense, descriptive story that reads more like an internal dialogue, rather than having a regular plot. It’s definitely unique and an important story that I’d recommend, exploring serious themes. The book explores drug-addiction, mental health and racism but more than anything else focuses on religion, and more specifically the relationship between Christianity and Science. Both the opposition and similarities of the two.

Our narrator, Gifty, is a PhD student in neurology. she is exploring the subject of risk/reward and wants to know whether her research can be used to identify the neural mechanisms involved in psychiatric illnesses where there are issues with reward seeking, like in depression, where there is too much restraint in seeking pleasure, or drug addiction, where there is not enough. Her interest in addition stems from her brothers addiction and her mother’s mental illness, which make up the majority of the narrative and reflections in the book, along with Gifty’s conflicting inner dialogue regarding her religion.

My favourite part was definitely the language and descriptive writing style. I love Gyasi’s way of making her words feel like your own thoughts. For the first few chapters I was totally entranced with every sentence, I found myself nodding along and making numerous notes.

I really connected to the main character and enjoyed the descriptions of Nana but found the other characters lacking some depth. Characterisation is the make or break for me with books and Gyasi done a good job, but not a great one on this.

Overall, really well written and an enjoyable read.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgally for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Though not extremely plot-heavy, this beautiful novel is a meditation on faith and science and the limits of both. I would have loved to spend more time with the protagonist Gifty, a PhD candidate in neuroscience who has raised in an immigrant family in the evangelical south and who is trying to reconcile her scientific beliefs with the religion she clung to as a child in the face of her brother’s fatal overdose and her mother’s ensuing depression.

Moving back and forth between Gifty’s childhood and the present day, between California, Ghana and Alabama and between complex explanations of neuroscience and a child’s literal understanding of religious doctrine, this is a stunning and compassionate novel. I genuinely learned a lot (the research behind Gifty’s research is apparent) and I questioned many of my own preconceptions. This is a novel that left me sobbing and adding Gyasi’s previous novel to my TBR list instantly. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Transcendent Kingdom follows a young woman, the daughter of immigrants from Ghana to the USA, who, when her mother in the midst of a depressive episode comes to stay, realises they both must confront the trauma of her father’s departure and her brother’s death in order to move on in their relationship from their current position of stasis.

First and foremost, what sticks out about this book is the writing. Yaa Gyasi has the kind of writing that makes you want to go away and find everything she’s ever written, just so you get to experience this writing for a little longer. Under 300 pages for this book was not nearly enough time as I really wanted with the writing. I could have read 400 pages or more of it. And me, saying this about an adult contemporary book? Is pretty big.

It’s also a writing style that’s very full of empathy and humanity. The book covers some heavy topics — opioid addiction, depression, suicide attempt and overdoses — and each is treated with gravity and respect. You might think, given that list, it’s a sad book — and at times, it is a book that will make you sad — but it’s also a very healing book. The treatment of the topics and the growth of the characters see to that.

I don’t often get along with adult contemporary lit, as I mentioned before, so that I enjoyed this one as much as I did is probably higher praise than it may seem. With this book, I think I’m slowly starting a list of adult contemporary authors I do enjoy reading. And Yaa Gyasi currently heads that list (and not because she’s the only name on it).

All of which, basically, to say that, if this is a book you haven’t yet read, then you should be doing your utmost to change that fact.

I was really looking forward to this book as Ive never read anything from Yaa Gyasi before and the synopsis really drew me in!

Unfortunately this book just didn’t grip me and it took me longer to get through than it should have as I just never wanted to pick it up. Overall I think I just found it a bit boring and it didn’t really seem to go anywhere! There was also a lot of talk of religion and science on this book too, which wasn’t necessarily to my liking.

I did enjoy the parts of the book where Gifty was talking about her childhood and relationship with her brother Nana and his addiction to Oxycontin was of course very sad and moving.

But overall there were just too many aspects of his book that I didn’t enjoy or found lacking. I have Yaas other book ‘HomeGoing’ to read on my Kindle and I will definitely still read it, although maybe not just yet.

A disappointing 2.5 stars for me!

What an incredible book. Gyasi's writing is exquisite. Having read this once I know I will read it again just to savour her sentences.

At the start of Transcendent Kingdom we are introduced to Gifty, a young woman working as a neuroscientist developing a paper on reward seeking behaviour in mice. She's rather awkward, without any real friends, and no-one at her lab knows much about her. As Gifty's narrative progresses however, we see that she's more just this talented, intelligent, quiet woman and her scientific work has deep personal ties.

Gifty, along with her mother, father and older brother Nana are part of the growing diaspora community from Ghana to America. With their arrival in Alabama, we see the family struggle to assimilate to their new life, especially father Chin Chin Man. The novel itself has on overall oppressive tone to it, almost like a miasma of despair that follows Gifty through her story. We see her father suffer as a tall black man in a community that is less than welcoming, meaning he feels less than a man. We see Gifty's mother work two jobs to try and elevate her family beyond poverty and a deep dive into depression, and we see Nana fall into a cycle of drugs as a result of generational trauma. It was a powerful read, but heavy.

I loved the way Gifty describes her brother Nana. To see him in her mind at his best, in motion, all fluid and graceful. Although she doesn't mention Nana to anyone, not even her mother, she keeps him close in her memories to ensure his life was never a waste. The good and the bad. I also liked the links and conflicts that Gifty finds in her exploration of faith and science. She has been brought up in a deeply religious household that relied on God for all the answers, yet she spends a lot of her current time around logical thinkers - herself included. Part of the story is finding the balance between her faith and her profession, and the cards she has been dealt in life and realising she doesn't have to choose between the two. It also looks closely at addiction from the side of the family and not the addict themselves and how they become consumed too.

I would say that there isn't really much of a plot here. We know from the start what happens to Nana, and the trajectory his family takes as a result. It's definitely more of a character examination, and if you go into this expecting something more than this you will be disappointed. The timeline also jumps around a bit too much at times, taking me out of the story and lessening the emotional impact at times. However Gifty's story is such an important one to tell, and one that will resonate with me for a long time.

Unique perspective, highly character based with beautiful words and a strong philosophical narrative. Yaa Gyasi certainly knows how to write.

A wonderful book by a fantastic author that highlights themes of addiction, mental health and family relationships. I loved Yaa Gyasi's debut novel Homegoing and was excited to read her next book. Gifty's experiences were beautifully written and I felt for her with the struggle between her scientific work and religious upbringing.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a review.

I have not read Yaa Gyasi’s first novel (Homegoing), but I will have to remedy that at some point after reading this one. This is a very confident, intelligent and emotional book that holds science and faith next to one another and looks at both through a lens of grief and addiction. At the same time, it explores issues of race. It does not answer all the questions it raises (I’m not sure that is possible), but it does present them in a sensitive way that gives the reader plenty to think about both during and after reading the book.

In the book’s “now”, Gifty is a PhD student working in the field of neuroscience. Specifically, she is exploring the subject of risk/reward (she wants to know whether her research can <i>”be used to identify the neural mechanisms involved in psychiatric illnesses where there are issues with reward seeking, like in depression, where there is too much restraint in seeking pleasure, or drug addiction, where there is not enough?</i>). As the book starts, we learn that Gifty’s mother has had a relapse of some kind of depressive illness (we begin to suspect the motivation for her PhD studies) and she moves to live with her daughter.

Her mother’s presence in her life causes Gifty to look back and much of the book takes place in flashbacks covering different periods of Gifty’s life. Here we begin to learn about Nana, her brother, and we discover an even more significant motivation for Gifty’s research.

Religious faith played an important part in Gifty’s growing up and this background feeds into her current scientific environment as she wrestles to understand what happened to her family and to come to terms with her own guilt about it.

This is a book that makes you pause to consider how amazing a human being is. The point where I paused, put the book down for a few minutes and thought most about this was when I read this:



"I know that psychology and neuroscience have to work in concert if we want to address the full range of human behaviour, and I really do love the idea of the whole animal, but I guess my question is that if the brain can’t account for things like reason and emotion, then what can? If the brain makes it possible for ‘us’ to feel and think, then what is ‘us’? Do you believe in souls?"

Whilst neuroscience can tell us how the brain behaves, pausing to think about what a memory or a desire actually is is very likely to amaze you. Any book that makes you more amazed at being human (Richard Powers’ “The Goldbug Variations” is another one that does this for me) is a great thing. And despite the fact that this book deals with some sad topics (the grief and addiction already mentioned), somehow it manages to give a positive view of how spectacular a human being is.

"When I watched the limping mouse refuse the lever, I was reminded yet again of what it means to be reborn, made new, saved, which is just another way of saying, of needing those outstretched hands of your fellows and that grace of God. That saving grace, amazing grace, is a hand and a touch, a fiber-optic implant and a lever and a refusal, and how sweet, how sweet it is."

How is it possible for a human being to write THIS well!! I have had the author’s previous novel Homegoing on my Kindle for months now and it will be rushing to the top of my queue now I’ve read this one.
The protagonist of this novel is Gifty, the American born daughter of first generation immigrant parents from Ghana. The novel is told in differing time frames: a summer Gifty spends in Ghana age 12, Gifty’s early childhood in Alabama and Gifty’s adult life, mainly now as a post grad doctoral student but also some glimpses into her time as an undergraduate. It is also told in different voices, Gifty’s own, from diary entries she wrote as a child, and from stories Gifty has managed to prise out of her Mother about her marriage and younger days.
This novel excels in it’s telling of the struggles of Mother and daughter who love each other deeply but are unable to show it or to ever fully understand the others world view. We know for most of the novel that the family of 4 is now simply Gifty and her mother, but why is revealed in stages over time. Both women suffering abandonment, judgement and at times hopelessness but from different men and in different ways.
The theme of Christianity is central to the book, both how Christian faith is expressed in different countries, churches and denominations and also how being raised in a devout household can colour your every viewpoint long after you’ve stopped practicing that faith and decided that you no longer believe in God which is what Gifty has found. She isn’t comfortable anywhere, not in the scientific community where her refusal to see science as having all the answers any more than God does and certainly not in her Mother’s single minded faith.
The novel isn’t just the story of Gifty’s life but a constant philosophical discussion on science, religion, family, immigration, addiction and I’m sure in reading groups up and down the USA and many other countries, it will have sparked fierce debate on thr uses of animals in scientific testing.
My one small criticism and it is very small is that I felt the last 10% was rushed. Had I been reading a paper copy I would probably have looked for the pages that had dropped out. That said, I liked the ending chapter a great deal and maybe Gyasi did this deliberately in order to have her readers fill in the blanks themselves. It’s certainly kept my mind on the characters since I finished the novel.

I ADORED this novel. Gifty was such a loveable protagonist and your heart breaks for her throughout the novel. I want everything to be ok so she can be happy and hear an “I love you” from her mum.

The insights into the science of addiction and depression really interested me and I felt took the book to the next level. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this considering I’m not even remotely science-y. But, it added a lot to the story and gave context to Gifty’s life.

This comparison has probably never been made, and I’m sure I’ll be the only one to make this comparison, but this book reminded me of Shuggie Bain. Now you might be wondering what a book about a young, white, gay male set in Scotland has to do with a book about a young, black, bisexual (?), female from Ghana.

Well, I thought a lot. They both explore addiction and the effects it has on family. I found it really interesting comparing the cultural acknowledgement of addiction. In Scotland, it’s difficult to hide because of gossip but quite normalised. In Alabama, it’s difficult to hide because of gossip but it’s definitely not normalised. Addiction destroys not only the person but also the family.

In both novels, I saw the child relationship with the mother being explored. They both are unable to speak to their mother honestly, they fear them but love them with all their heart. They’d do anything to please their mothers. This was such a stark similarity throughout I just kept thinking of little Shuggie Bain as Gifty.

Anyway... read this novel!

Transcendent Kingdom is a powerful, impressive new character-driven novel from the author of Homegoing. At its heart is the relationship between religion and science as the protagonist, 29 year-old neurosurgeon Gifty tries to reconcile her faith and answer deeper questions connected to her doctoral research into addiction. The novel moves back and forth in time exploring issues of abandonment, loneliness, mental health and grief. Gifty’s brother, a talented athlete died from a drug overdose, having initially been prescribed OxyContin for a sports injury. Gifty’s subsequent career path and research into neural processes that might help impede addiction assume added poignancy. She is also a carer for her mother who has suffered acute depression ever since the death of her son. The father is absent, having left Alabama for his native Ghana because of institutionalised racism, which underlines the whole novel.

Gyasi handles these difficult themes with sensitivity and compassion. I thought her writing just fabulous and Transcendent Kingdom a more mature novel than Homegoing. She is certainly one of the most interesting and impressive contemporary American novelists and I can’t wait for her next work. Hopefully we’ll get the same release date in the UK as in the US next time.

My thanks to Penguin UK and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review Transcendent Kingdom.

This is the story of Gifty, a Ivy League student who is studying neurology - specialising in the reward trigger and addition - and her mother who is staying with her. They are both dealing - in their own way - with the death of Gifty's brother, Nana, from a painkiller addiction. While Gifty's mum prays and stays in bed all day, barely able to move, Gifty focuses her academic research on the addiction that killed her brother.

This is such a moving novel of immigration - from Ghana -, loss (their absent father first, Nana a few years later), grief, and the relationship between the mother and the daughter.was very touching. I loved everything about it; it is beautifully written, and the memories of Gifty's childhood and her trip to Ghana were well woven into the present time story. I loved as well that after reading - through my own choice - books with such flawed main characters, dysnfunctional and self-destructive, Gifty felt so... tidy and reasonable - successful, hard-working, trying hard to be a good daughter, unsure about religion, dealing with her own grief.

"I wanted things just so. I wanted to tell my stories the way I wanted to tell them, in my own time, imposing a kind of order that didn't exist in the moment".

Gyasi has created another absolute masterpiece with this book.

This is a beautifully written story which focuses on the devastating loss of a brother due to drug addiction as well as dealing with a mother who struggles with mental health issues. There are also deeper insights in which Gyasi adds real depth to philosophical arguments around science vs religion, which the character engages in to try and get answers to her family problems.

The bigger questions in this book such as the existence of God and how to live with grief left me thinking long after I put down the book.

Gyasi's skills for narrating a story are a true talent and will leave any reader blown away.