But is that really what a book SHOULD do? I felt the way she (narrator!) tackled these issues was very consistent and believable, since the narrator IS, in fact, very young. religions, and there could have been more depth and complexity in the intersection between sexism and racism. Sure, it could have been more academic in its treatment of science vs. This is a novel that tries to be about many complex and important things, but succeeds only at being a story of a woman of Ghanaian heritage who's been through a lot of familial turmoil, IMO. Reading about these issues in this novel made me think it was meant for a YA audience (not an insult, just an observation). These subjects have been written on by better authors with more insight. Every factoid about opioids addiction or treatment of mental illness, intersection of religion and science or sexism and racism in academia is of the quality of a high school report. Transcendent Kingdom reads so deeply felt when it talks about Gifty's family's struggles and complex relationships in both America and Ghana, and yet so immature and pedestrian when it tries to tackle questions of science and religion, or anything really. I feel uncharitable criticizing a book so personal to the author and so relatable to me (I wish I didn't live through some, a lot of this), but I think this novel would have been better written a couple of decades later in Gyasi's career, with more perspective, life experience and knowledge.
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