Wow. It’s hard to put into words the way that Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi is IN my heart. This book took me by surprise, not because I doubted everyone’s praise of Gyasi’s work, but because of how personally meaningful and resonant I found it. The poem Gyasi quotes in the epigraph, God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins, made me sit up immediately, because that poem has been a huge favorite of mine since high school. Throughout this novel Gyasi explores Gifty's struggles between her Christian upbringing and losing faith, how she uses neuroscience so much in her understanding of the world but also grapples with how that too can fall short. It was touching the way Gifty defended religion even after she'd personally abandoned it, how she didn't like hearing people talk bad about something that was important to her mother, and how she bristles against others’ easy rejection of something that’s been a part of her life in a way they clearly do not understand.⁣
⁣
I loved the way the story was structured, Gyasi weaves together the present and past storylines in a way that felt very organic, like the reader doesn't know everything because Gifty hasn't been able to share some things yet. It was honestly so hard to remember that this book was not a memoir written by a real Gifty person, Gyasi is clearly deeply inside her character’s story and perspective, and I loved learning from the acknowledgements about the pieces of this story that came from the real research studies of Gyasi’s close friend. This book quietly broke my heart, yet also brought me new facets of self understanding when thinking about my own journey with faith and science and understanding the world. I’m a rare rereader but I’m already looking forward to revisiting this one.⁣

Cw for drug addiction, overdosing, depression