“What’s the point of all of this?” is a question that separates humans from other animals. Our curiosity around this issue has sparked everything from science to literature to philosophy to religion. When the answer to this question is “Because God deemed it so,” we might feel comforted. But what if the answer to this question is “I don’t know,” or worse still, “Nothing”?

Transcendent Kingdom is a story of grief, of struggling to find meaning in the seemingly meaningless. At times it tiptoes around despair and at others it plunges you head first into it. A much slower, understated book than her first. Told in the first person it is also more personal, centering on one family that had come to Alabama from Ghana. Gifty is our narrator and she is now grown, working in Stanford's labs. It goes back and forth from a time when her family was complete, to the present where it is just Fifty and he mother. A mother who suffers from major depression.

There are some strong overlaps between this book and the Booker-shortlisted “Real Life” – although in this novel the scientific research (here into mice rather than nematodes) is central to the book and non-autobiographical in nature (actually deriving from research done by the author’s friend – see link below) rather than serving as a simply a autobiographical vehicle for an exploration of other themes. I have to say also that I think this is a far more mature and coherent novel than the debut “Real Life”.

Gyasi's writing is lyrical and sweeping. The novel moves around in time from past to present and includes diary entries from her childhood. There were a number of quotes that resonated with her. I could feel the weight of the summers in the South. I felt Gifty's torment over the mouse with the limp, and the joy when she figures everything out.

The more I think about this book, the more I feel that it was brilliant and that my reading experience with it was very personal. When you’re not used to being seen, when you’re often in the background, it can be a strange feeling to see yourself reflected back at you. The reflection is not exactly the same, but has enough similarities that you recognize yourself. I think that’s part of what I struggled with in the first half- I saw some of myself when I wasn’t ready to.

I love novels that open my mind to experiences I have not had. I’ve read many immigrant stories and loved them for differing reasons. This one I found to be astounding in the religion, immigrant, science, mental health, and family aspects. The immigrant struggle is just a piece of a whole mess of cultural differences in this story. It’s a personal story which sweeps the reader into another life, another place, and another way of thought. I loved it.

A beautifully written story by an incredibly talented author, Transcendent Kingdom is complex, moving and at times heartbreaking. The depth of character and complexity of relationships makes for a narrative that feels so very genuine that it seems more fact than fiction. It's an absolute masterpiece and I could not recommend it more.

REVIEW
Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi

Now I just want to disclaim that this book is BEAUTIFUL - the writing and the insight given into Gifty (oh and the cover). For me personally this was a good mind stretch opportunity because I have for most of my life lacked the curiosity to really question or get deep into religion vs science / faith/belief vs rationality which is the crux of this book. This is why my rating on this is mixed, however, if the plot was my bag, this would be a 5 ⭐️.

I did love the insight that Gyasi gives with Gifty’s inner dialogue in relation to the traumas and testing moments in her life. The move from Ghana to Alabama, her father’s abandonment, the tragic loss of her brother and then dealing on her own with her mother’s deep depressive state.

She’s gifted with intellect and drive, and with the traumas shaping her early life, the struggle between resting on her faith (her roots) or pursuing her purpose through science (her passion) takes over.

It’s not a light story by any means, and the plot pace is slow and back and forth, and doesn’t really build. Gifty’s character doesn’t necessarily build throughout the book either despite all she’s been through. If you want a happy, easy read, this isn’t the book for now. If you want to stretch and open your mind and take in a unique perspective, slide it out of your TBR!

Thank you @netgalley for sending me the ebook in return for my honest review, to accompany the hardcover I couldn’t help but buy (😍).

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This book! I adored every second of it. It was beautiful, powerful and moving. I immediately wanted to start it again as soon as I read the last page.

I loved the thoughtful and poignant musings on the difference between science and religion and how this intersects with grief. It really moved me.

This book is a masterpiece and I know that I will re-read this for years to come. This is definitely in my favourite books of the year, and possibly of all time.

Reading this book I realised that I can’t spell Transcendent. I keep trying to mix in Incandescent and Descendent and it’s all quite confusing. Still, thank goodness for spellcheck.

This is Gyasi’s second book, after the critically acclaimed and prize winning ‘Homegoing’, published in 2016. I haven’t read that one yet, but I did read ‘Homecoming’ by Luan Goldie last year, which led to a few muddled google searches. The Goldie book is good, by the way, if you are looking for something else to read. I really enjoyed it.

It tells the story of Ghanian-American woman Gifty, and her family consisting of her Mum, Dad and brother, Nana. Before she’s born, they move from Ghana to Alabama, US with the promise of a better life and an increase in prospects.

It begins in the present, where Gifty is working in a science lab, and goes back and forth as she tells the stories of herself, her family and how she got to be here. Her older brother, Nana, is no longer around under sad circumstances, which come out over the course of the book. How her parents dealt, and are still dealing with it.

Perhaps I expected it to be more powerful unfairly, but although I enjoyed it, I didn’t feel connected to the story and to the family. I think by virtue of Gifty’s nature, she is quite reserved and quiet, and struggled to get to the heart of her own problems, emotionally. She tried to tackle them by explaining the nature of addiction, by studying to become a neuroscientist – quite an extreme course of action.

There’s a section where she thinks about and discusses the disintegration of the soul, and I was really interested in that as it was the subject of my dissertation at university, for my Lit/Phil degree. I theorised that ill mental health is the outward signs of the soul being sick, in the same way that ill physical health is manifested in, well, having something you can see. It’s not very long, but it was thought-provoking.

I also really liked the section on Gifty describing her mother’s personality changes in different languages – cross and forceful, girlish, hesitant and shy in English as it’s the language she’s least confident in. I’ve come across this before, and I think it’s fascinating that for those people who speak multiple languages, the framework of the language itself dictates how they’re perceived by others they speak to. Add in the complication of idioms, class signifiers and dialects and you get a complex layer of communication before you get to the true self.

I would like to read Homegoing – Gyasi is a Ghanian-American who grew up in Alabama so it sounds like her first two novels are at least semi-autobiographical, which is interesting. Or at least, she’s writing about what she knows. I’d also like to see what her next book is about.

I was also really pleased to see it make it into the shortlist for the Women’s Prize: https://womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/

Thanks as always to Netgalley and Penguin for the DRC.

It's hard to condense this book into a brief description, because it's a lot of things. It's the introspective story of Gifty, a child of immigrants, growing up in Alabama and the impact religion has had on her life. It's also about her family and the difficulties they faced and how those have influenced her work. Addiction and grief are central themes, and we get a front row seat as Gifty deals with her own emotions surrounding the loss of her brother and the impact it has had on her mother, both in the past and the present.

The story is a quiet one and written beautifully. It didn't take me long at all to feel like I knew Gifty and understood her, and that feeling had only grown by the time I got to the end. Part of it is because the book is written in first person, but I would say most of the insights come through what we learn about Gifty's relationship with her mother. Like all family dynamics, theirs is complex, and sometimes difficult.

The ending felt a little abrupt, and some of the time jumps were kind of disorienting, especially when we were jumping from the present to her college years. I think I would've also enjoyed learning more details about Gifty's experiments; we are told that her brother is the driving force behind them, but I didn't feel like we spent as much time on that part even though it feels like something that goes to the core of who she is.

I was looking forward to this book so much - Home going is one of my all time favourite reads but if you go into this expecting much of the same you will be surprised. It's completely different.
In a nutshell it is a meandering tale of a mother and daughters journey after loss.
It touches upon grief. immigration, addiction, mental health, careers, race, religion and science.
I am still formulating my thoughts but overall I enjoyed it, somehow it manages to be both intense and quietly peaceful.

Let’s start with I loved it. Transcendent Kingdom is completely different stylistically and thematically to Yaa Gyasi’s previous novel Homegoing, which I read last summer, but what they share is a depth of character and complexity of themes, while remaining incredibly readable. There is so much to this book - it centres around one main character, Gifty, whose family move to Alabama from Ghana before she’s born. The narrative moves around in time, looking back at her childhood and young adult years, her relationships with her mother and brother, and her brother’s addiction, all through the lens of her research as a neuroscientist where she is seeking the answers she’s craved for most of her life: can people resist pleasure they know will be bad for them? What is it that makes humanity unique? Is faith irrational, or the only possible response to suffering?

Again, I’m so amazed by how deep this book goes into its characters’ psychology and the nature of human life, because there really is so much going on in this book that I could talk about it for days. I read it very slowly but whenever I picked it up I was right back in the characters’ minds, asking questions and thinking about things I’ve never considered before. The writing style is so deceptively simple, it’s effortless but hits you with so many layers and questions about religion, mental illness, science, psychology, friendship, all without losing its propulsiveness or character. Just gorgeous.

This book was fabulous from word one! We follow Gifty, a PhD student looking into the neurological processes involved in addiction following the overdose of her beloved brother. The writing here is just fantastic. It is lyrical but never strays into maudlin and has the ability to cut right to the core of a subject in just a few words. There is so much at play in the narrative; the relationship between siblings, that of mothers and daughters, whether science and religion can ever co-exist, the opioid epidemic, the role of immigrants in society and the list goes on. Yaa Gyasi jumps back and forwards in time to Gifty's childhood and present day and intersperses the narrative with entries from Gifty's diary, all of which are addressed to God. The characters were really well drawn and felt so authentic and I was utterly blown away by how much I connected with them in such a short space of time. This was pretty much a perfect novel for me and I cannot wait to see what Yaa Gyasi treats us to next.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This novel was completely different from Homegoing, the authors debut. But it was equally as impressive. This novel follows Gifty, raised by Ghanaian parents in Alabama, Texas. This is a very understated, slow novel that muses on a plethora of topics such as addition issues, the opioid crisis in the US in particular, the religious vs scientific debate, racism in the US, mental illness and the complexity of familial relationships. Gifty thrusts herself into the scientific world of neuroscience and spends the majority of the novel hiding away in her university laboratory, experimenting on lab rats. She socially isolates herself from people and from her formative years being raised in a very religious upbringing by hiding herself in the security of science. I found the emotional losses in her life and her need to protect herself from others as a result very interesting. I also found the themes raised in this book and the beautiful way Yaa Gyasi was able to write about them incredibly remarkable and it made for a stunning, highly impactful reading experience.

Thanks to the author Yaa Gyasi, Penguin UK and NetGalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this having not read Homegoing. It drew me in and I loved the unique subject matter. It lost a mark for me for all the information about the mice but I think that would’ve made the story for many people.

Yaa Gyasi as an unique way to describe the life of her characters. In Transcendent Kingdom she looks at the past and the present of her protagonist in a very compelling way. I could have kept reading and reading Gifty's story

I'm in awe of Yaa Gyasi. What a sublimely talented writer and so young. I read Homegoing, her first novel, with amazement at her control of such an ambitious story (the repercussions of the transatlantic slave trade) and the excellent writing.

Transcendent Kingdom is on a (slightly) smaller scale, dealing with migration, loss, addiction and, ultimately, what it means to be human. A fascinating story where the central character has shaped her whole scientific research in investigating desire and reward as a means of understanding her brother's addiction. Again her characters are taken from Ghana to the south of the US but this time through choice. It's the effect of this movement and search for identity that Yaa Gyasi examines so movingly.

Recommended.

I absolutely loved this book and couldn't recommend it more! I truly admire how mindfully and gracefully the author writes about potentially triggering topics such as depression and drug addiction. This book will stay in my thoughts for a long time to come, for all the right reasons.

This was a challenging read. I found Gifty’s struggles very difficult to comprehend, the mental health issues all of her family faced was swept under the carpet. Instead Gifty looked for logical reasons and science to explain the impossible. At times I thought I was reading an academic paper and others a story of a scared and lonely young girl.

I am not sure how I feel about this book. I finished this a few days ago wondering what the main message was. To be honest I’m still not really sure of it. This book is about a character called Gifty and she is from Alabama. Her parents emigrated to America from Ghana and she had a brother who became addicted to opioids. What goes from a family story to an in-depth look at science versus religion was difficult to navigate. Both stories were so interesting however the way they were woven together didn’t really work for me. I thought the ending was perfect but I’d still like to hear more from Gifty. I think she is a character who will stay with me for a long time. Obviously this author is an incredible writer. She has amazing range as this book is absolutely nothing like her previous masterpiece Homegoing. Except for the obvious link between Ghana and the United States. She is a magnificent writer there is no doubt, but this book left me wanting.

Disclaimer: Despite the various accolades, I am yet to read this author's debut, hence, the rating may be subject to changes in future.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin UK for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As a standalone and a novel that I read devoid of any preconceptions of its predecessor's immense success, I liked Transcendent Kingdom. Was it a bit preachy at times, yes, but not in the pretentious way that I've seen other books tackle the subject of organised religion; this one felt more natural and relatable in that the protagonist, Gifty's, life was intertwined with religion much to her displeasure/indifference/all the emotions in between - and we all may have been at that point at least once where our faith was put to test. The prose is excellent and saves the novel in many places where the plot otherwise feels dragged or Gifty's actions seem exasperating, so +1 star just for that.

The one major plot point that I bear grievance towards is Gifty's character arc - she isn't very compelling to begin with, but the plot elevates her status relatively. Everything around her seems to give her experiences of a lifetime (being a black woman in the US), but she either comes off as entitled or oblivious to them, thereby in the end, I as a reader found very little maturity on her part despite the climax propounding otherwise (which felt uncharacteristic to me). She is portrayed as someone who, owing to her dysfunctional upbringing, is on a neverending quest to understand the human mind and God, both mysterious and vexing in equal parts to her, but her voice betrays any learnings she may have otherwise picked up along the way because she seems nonchalant about it as a child as well as an adult.

Overall, I am glad I read this novel and would recommend it to those who want to read a slow-paced literary novel filled with religious subtexts and race discussions. I look forward to reading Homegoing in the near future as well.

TW for addiction and OD.

This story is told through Gifty's eyes, going backwards and forwards in time. Gifty was a religious child brought up by a mother who spent more time at work than she did with her family and an absent father who couldn't cope with the trials that arose from being an immigrant in America and so returned to Ghana when he had had enough. Gifty found solace in her elder brother, Nana but just as Gifty was reaching adulthood he left her too.
This is a story of a young religiously zealous girl coming of age, losing all her support system- a mother through depression, a brother through addiction and overdose and a father who showed her no interest, Gifty begins to question the one thing that has stuck by her and that is the religion she is brought up upon. She begins to rejects its doctrines in turn looks to find answers in science.
At times I wondered that the metamorphosis that Gifty goes through are actually Yaa Gyasi's own memoirs as it is told so fluently in the first person. There was an air of melancholy throughout this book, so it is hard to say I enjoyed it. It is deep and reflective upon having blind belief in organised religion, and an insight into depression and addiction and how it affects the children around them. Not an easy read.

Having previously loved Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, Transcendent Kingdom had a lot to live up to in my estimations. Unfortunately, I did not care for this text as much as I had hoped. There are too many ideas that the writer doesn't fully examine, so that these reads like one long monologue, constantly veering all over the place without really settling anywhere - whilst I am able to appreciate the severity of certain themes, and how important it is that these are discussed in literature, I do not believe that this was achieved in the best fashion in this tome.

I will definitely continue to support the writer's career, there are moments of brilliant prose here, but they were few and far between. Ultimately, I'm left disappointed.

I've had a copy on my Kindle for 6 months, but really wanted to hold and feel this book. After loving Homegoing and hearing Yaa speak at a Damian Barr Literary Salon, I was fully in fangirl mode. But when you love a debut so much, there is trepidation that the second book won't be as entrancing. I shouldn't have been worried. It's so incredible. What a book. Between this and Real Life, I kind of want to become a scientist and hang out in labs. This is one of the best novels I've ever read. The empathy and storytelling and beauty of it is something I am desperate to share and discuss.