Transcendent Kingdom has a whole lot of story for a book ~264 pages long. The book essentially focuses on Gifty, a young woman studying the neuroscience behind addictions and impulse control. She is from Ghana and her family moved to Hunstville, Alabama. Her brother was a talented athlete who became addicted to opioids after an injury leading to his overdose. Her mother is overly religious suffering severe depression along with other issues. And Gifty hopes that all her education, experience, and work with neuroscience will help her unravel, understand, and digest all of the issues and suffering around her.

As you may infer, this book focuses a lot on substance abuse, internal conflicts and struggles of identity, religion vs. science, racism and assimilation, complicated family lives, immigration, and more. Gifty is definitely a strong, resilient, and smart character. We get to see her make the best sense of her life, both past and present, and watch her discover more of who she is. This book is thoughtful and emotional and will have you thinking about everything.