I'll read anything Yaa Gyasi writes.In Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi writes of pain and loss so vividly the reader feels it, as if they are actually experiencing it themselves. TL DR Transcendent Kingdom is so damn sad, but it's also really thoughtful and has sparks of hope sprinkled throughout, much like real life. Specifically that disorienting feeling of helplessness that comes with not being able to save the person you love most. For anyone whose family has been touched by addiction - which comes with a deep well of loss, anger, guilt, and frustration - Gyasi's depiction of the ways Gifty and her mother cope with Nana's descent into heroin will likely ring true (perhaps unsettlingly so). The strongest part of the novel for me is the main character Gifty's relationship with her brother, Nana, who succumbs to a drug addiction. She's able to communicate complex, heartrending emotions and situations in such sparing language. Although I personally found it a little tough to get fully sucked into the story because of the religious themes (especially when I was comparing my reading experience to Homegoing, which is one of my favorite books *ever*) I was still blown away by Yaa Gyasi's writing. My Thoughts: Transcendent Kingdom is a beautiful, bittersweet piece of fiction.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.” Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed.

Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on Ox圜ontin. Publisher Description: “Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction.

Transcendent kingdom yaa gyasi review