The second novel after the hugely successful Homegoing, this novel was another outstanding turn from Gyasi. Full of clever observations, rich insights, and wonderful characters who jumped from the page.

I really enjoyed this! It's a thoughtful and substantial novel, and is often quite moving. It's about religion, science, mental health, and addiction.

The plot is really clever - the main character carries out research on mice, seeking to discover if they can resist desire. Or as she puts it: <i>"The brain chemistry of these mice has changed to the point where they aren't really in control of what they can or can't control. They aren't 'themselves.'"</i> Her research parallels her backstory: Her brother was an addict, and her mother suffers from extreme depression - so one can't resist desire, the other can't feel it. It's a very clever hook.

The other part of the book I thought was really clever and well done was its depiction of the shame and sense of wrongness that institutionalised racism can cause - the self-hatred. Also, the idea that you need to 'perform' or 'be perfect' in order to be acceptable. The voice of this book sometimes reminded me of Ottessa Moshfegh's first-person narrators: someone who is lonely, pretending that they're fine when they're really not.

Quibbles:
- Dialogue from the brother often sounded flat, especially at the height of his addiction ("I'll get better this time, Mom. I promise."). Probably realistic but still... flat.
- In the last fourth of the book, the structure/pace fell apart (especially after the trip to Ghana) and it got a bit rambling, as if the book had lost track of itself and wasn't sure how to finish. But to be fair, I'm never sure if this is the fault of the Kindle ARC not having correct chapter breaks/spacings inserted.

Overall, a captivating and emotional read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

This novel is a powerful novel about family loss, love and grief, tied together in gorgeous and delicate prose. Gifty is a Ghanaian - American daughter of immigrants who tells her story with such emotional depth and emphathy. As a huge fan of Yaa Gyasi's debut novel Homegoing, this did not disappoint

Oh but this book was glorious. introspective and unflinching and fascinating, I pretty much inhaled it. I was so involved in every aspect - I loved the exploration of Gifty's relationships with her mother and her brother and with God - her faith juxtaposed alongside her scientific research was so interesting and so clever - and even though it was hard to read there was no denying the explorations of grief and addiction were so well done. Not an easy read in terms if content, sure, but one that got under my skin in the best way.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.
We follow Gifty’s quest to search for rhyme or reason to what happened to her brother through her science and battle with religion. I felt the start was a little slow but I soon became invested in Gifty’s character. A heartbreaking story.

I loved ‘Homegoing’ and Gyasi’s writing here is just as beautiful. I’ve been waiting patiently for the UK publication of this book- thankful to get this on Netgalley a couple of months early. The story of Gifty, child of Ghanaian immigrants as she tries to make sense of family trauma , addiction, mental illness through her work on lab mice. Science v faith is a major theme but there are many others. It was just a lovely poignant read.

Your patience will be rewarded.
The only shared link between this novel and Homegoing is the strong writing skill of the author. Gifty, a Ghanian-American daughter of immigrants, is telling her story of living a first generation immigrant life growing up in Alabama with her older brother Nana. Nana is the all-American athlete with a promising future until one innocuous accident starts a chain of events that will influence not only Gifty's future career choices but her relationship with her mother and any other personal relationships.
The story unfolds slowly and you have to be patient and let Gifty as the narrator open up to you as she starts to trust the reader with her story. The use of humour (her mum is code named the Black Mamba) is well-controlled and adds warmth, great insight into religion and intelligent and empathetic observations on choice and addiction.
This is a beautiful and lyrical novel. I am one of a minority who didn't rave about Homegoing. I feel differently about Transcendent Kingdom. This deserves much praise for the restraint with which this story is told. It could have been over embellished in the hands of a lesser author.
[This review was also posted on Amazon.]

This book gets the easiest 5 stars I’ve given for a long time. After loving Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi I was so excited to be approved for an advanced copy of her newest book Transcendent Kingdom.

Gifty was brought up an Evangelical Christian in Alabama with her Ghanian family, her father left them and returned to Ghana, her brother dies of an overdose and her mother enters a crippling depression. At 11 years old she is sent to Ghana while her mother recovers. Now a PhD student studying neuroscience, specifically addiction, she is trying to understand why her brother was taken and why her mother is trapped in depression again. She explores her faith as well as her neuroscience knowledge whilst recalling her past, trying to find the answer within God and/or science will make everything better.

The writing in this is so clever, it’s layered, it’s informative and offers insight and understanding to a number of issues. I felt as the reader that I was following Gifty’s trail of thought as she recalled events from the past and weighed up why God and her pastor hadn’t helped and why science had failed to provide answers.

Gifty’s need to fix her family is so despairingly strong, that it overtakes her life. She can’t open up to friends or form relationships and as you read her journey, trying to piece everything together for everyone else, you become more and more aware that Gifty herself is broken and struggling. When I read the following ‘“No I’m not ok”, I said, and I wondered when the last time I’d said that was. Had I ever said it, even to God?’ I burst into tears for this incredibly kind and vulnerable character.

I have no criticism whatsoever. This book is phenomenal.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinukbooks for the pleasure of reading this before it’s 4th March publication date

I loved it! A brilliant, authentic piece of writing from Yaa Gyasi, simply wonderful!
I could not put this down. The themes of religion and faith were handled with beautiful delicacy, so much so that I was able to explore a real depth of the main character, fully understanding how she's feeling and reacting at any given time. For a book that touched on so many difficult elements; addiction, loss, racism and mental health, I was impressed by how well each was handled. At no time feel as if the writer had simply tied to include as many 'issues' as possible (as unfortunately is the case with so many other books) Transcendent Kingdom was a complete emotional rollercoaster, and I adored every minute!

Gifty, a student of neuroscience, has dedicated her work to the study of reward-seeking behaviour and its relationship to addiction and depression. In experimenting on mice, Gifty is drawn back to her childhood and her experiences growing up in Alabama. Originally from Ghana, her family came to America filled with optimism and hope for their new life. Her father soon abandons them, leaving behind her brother Nana, whose opioid addiction costs him his life, and her Mother who is slowly slipping away consumed by her depression, leaving Gifty alone with her grief.

Written from the perspective of Gifty, the novel feels like an internal monologue, in which our protagonist takes us through her formative years and the impact that her experiences of race, class and addiction have had on her and her family.

Although religion and science are often presented as being diametrically opposed, Yaa Gyasi uses both in her portrayal of Gifty’s understanding of the world.

There are so many beautiful, thought-provoking passages in this book, and it is worth reading for that reason alone. The style is elegiac, employing figurative imagery and poetic language to create a sense of loss and grief throughout. Whilst there is little in the way of a plot, this novel is built from acute observations that completely consume your thoughts.

Yaa Gyasi has created a piece of work that intertwines philosophy, theology and science, in order to navigate the choices of humans and answer the question: ‘What’s the point of all of this?’

As a huge fan of Homegoing, I had high expectations for this second novel from the same author, Yaa Gyasi. My initial reaction, therefore, when it became clear that this was to be a very different book, was disappointment. The settings and themes are different, and we are given an intense focus on a single character rather than a sprawling epic across the generations. And yet, despite the major differences, Gyasi pulls it off, showing a breadth of talent that must have other authors seething with envy.

We follow Gifty, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants in the USA, and her difficult experiences as she grows up into early adulthood. We are with her through grief and childhood trauma, experience of addiction and depression, and as she searches for answers through an uneasy combination of religious faith and hard science. As a neuroscientist, she is quite literally seeking solutions for the causes of the suffering those closest to her have experienced.

On each of these themes, Transcendent Kingdom equals anything else I have read. We feel her grief and her pain, we see how this drives her on in some ways and holds her back in others as she struggles to deal with the long-term consequences. And the highly-charged topic of science and religion is handled with incredible deftness and sensitivity.

The subject matter mean it can be emotionally difficult reading - this is not a thriller or a romance - but the simplicity and beauty of the writing make it easy reading in a different sense. To handle these themes so well can only have been achieved through meticulous crafting and re-crafting of prose, and yet it flows so smoothly, like the words just poured out onto the page. A remarkable achievement.

I've been desperately looking forward to reading more of Yaa Gyasi's work, and her latest novel, Transcendent Kingdom, did not disappoint.

Through Gifty, the daughter of a Ghanain immigrant family who moved to Alabama before she was born, we are taken on an emotional journey. It's some time since a book hit me in the heart quite as strongly as this one. Now a young lady researching for her PhD in neuroscience, Gifty relives everything that has taken her to that point in her life - growing up in a religious family, her brother a promising basketball start who becomes addicted to drugs, her mother suffering from depression, the racism that confronts them in their town of Huntsville, Alabama, and Gifty's quest for answers.

Gyasi's prose is wonderful and, despite the serious issues addressed, it is easy to read. Gifty is a character that I immediately felt connected to, drawn into her family and caring about them all. I became so invested that at times I found myself holding my breath, fearful of what the next few lines might reveal.

Quite simply, this is an incredible novel. It's different from her debut, Homegoing, and I really admire that Gyasi has such range to her writing. It's a story that will stay with me and a book that I will be recommending to all who will listen.

I really loved Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing and felt that Transcendent Kingdom had the same engaging writing and I really felt for the character Gifty. Not sure why I just didn't feel hugely connected to the story even though it was very thought-provoking and emotional. I felt certain topics like addition could have been explored more in-depth but parts about her Ghanian heritage were explored really well. Despite this, it's still beautifully written and interesting.

I immediately wanted to read this based on the author alone. I LOVED Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and had high hopes for Transcendent Kingdom.

This is an intense, descriptive story that reads more like an internal dialogue, rather than having a regular plot. It’s definitely unique and an important story that I’d recommend, exploring serious themes. The book explores drug-addiction, mental health and racism but more than anything else focuses on religion, and more specifically the relationship between Christianity and Science. Both the opposition and similarities of the two.

Our narrator, Gifty, is a PhD student in neurology. she is exploring the subject of risk/reward and wants to know whether her research can be used to identify the neural mechanisms involved in psychiatric illnesses where there are issues with reward seeking, like in depression, where there is too much restraint in seeking pleasure, or drug addiction, where there is not enough. Her interest in addition stems from her brothers addiction and her mother’s mental illness, which make up the majority of the narrative and reflections in the book, along with Gifty’s conflicting inner dialogue regarding her religion.

My favourite part was definitely the language and descriptive writing style. I love Gyasi’s way of making her words feel like your own thoughts. For the first few chapters I was totally entranced with every sentence, I found myself nodding along and making numerous notes.

I really connected to the main character and enjoyed the descriptions of Nana but found the other characters lacking some depth. Characterisation is the make or break for me with books and Gyasi done a good job, but not a great one on this.

Overall, really well written and an enjoyable read.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgally for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

Though not extremely plot-heavy, this beautiful novel is a meditation on faith and science and the limits of both. I would have loved to spend more time with the protagonist Gifty, a PhD candidate in neuroscience who has raised in an immigrant family in the evangelical south and who is trying to reconcile her scientific beliefs with the religion she clung to as a child in the face of her brother’s fatal overdose and her mother’s ensuing depression.

Moving back and forth between Gifty’s childhood and the present day, between California, Ghana and Alabama and between complex explanations of neuroscience and a child’s literal understanding of religious doctrine, this is a stunning and compassionate novel. I genuinely learned a lot (the research behind Gifty’s research is apparent) and I questioned many of my own preconceptions. This is a novel that left me sobbing and adding Gyasi’s previous novel to my TBR list instantly. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Such a powerful and enriched novel. The prose takes you on a journey and envokes such lush imaginary. Highly recommend this novel!

Transcendent Kingdom follows a young woman, the daughter of immigrants from Ghana to the USA, who, when her mother in the midst of a depressive episode comes to stay, realises they both must confront the trauma of her father’s departure and her brother’s death in order to move on in their relationship from their current position of stasis.

First and foremost, what sticks out about this book is the writing. Yaa Gyasi has the kind of writing that makes you want to go away and find everything she’s ever written, just so you get to experience this writing for a little longer. Under 300 pages for this book was not nearly enough time as I really wanted with the writing. I could have read 400 pages or more of it. And me, saying this about an adult contemporary book? Is pretty big.

It’s also a writing style that’s very full of empathy and humanity. The book covers some heavy topics — opioid addiction, depression, suicide attempt and overdoses — and each is treated with gravity and respect. You might think, given that list, it’s a sad book — and at times, it is a book that will make you sad — but it’s also a very healing book. The treatment of the topics and the growth of the characters see to that.

I don’t often get along with adult contemporary lit, as I mentioned before, so that I enjoyed this one as much as I did is probably higher praise than it may seem. With this book, I think I’m slowly starting a list of adult contemporary authors I do enjoy reading. And Yaa Gyasi currently heads that list (and not because she’s the only name on it).

All of which, basically, to say that, if this is a book you haven’t yet read, then you should be doing your utmost to change that fact.

Transcendence.

It is all we search for don't we? The word though having it's origin of meaning in something heavenly and beyond human touch, has its true explanation somewhere deep within the human heart. You let in all the pain and all the hurt that comes with being a human to bind you and clasp you in it's chain, you too love that state, secretly but surely. But when you fight through it and try to break it, that is when you create your own transcendence state, your own heavenly body within the organ systemic human body. Beyond all the definitions of science and far from all the cautions of religion, you merge with a superior power, that is nowhere but within you, that is everything yet nothing but hope and the bliss it emanates.

Yaa Gyasi taught me this in her sophomore novel "Transcendent Kingdom". A family broken apart gives rise to the most powerful of beings as the next generation, or the most weakest of bonds and links, for that is what Homo Sapiens make themselves of and affiliate themselves about. Gifty's father went back to Ghana under the weight and increasing burden of American racism, her brother succumbed to opiod addiction when the doctor advised OxyCotin for a basketball injury, her mother left comatose by all of this spiralled into the abyss of depression and is left bedridden. All signs of escapism, which Gifty and her mother don't show because they know how to fight.

Amidst all of this Gifty stands strong, does a PhD in neurology in Harvard, takes in her breaking and failing mother, conflicts within the being of neutrality: neither does she stop believing in the beauty of the Bible and it's thoughts nor does she leave her scientist rationality and believes everything through godly lenses, fights with the silent racism that is in the air they breathe as she says "I did not want to be a woman in science. A Black Woman in science." She is the actual transcendent state and her kingdom is the one Gyasi has so beautifully and fiercely traded words from.

This is how you break from the "rooster coop" and not through cheating or murdering, through acts of defiance, small and subtle, fierce and beautiful, courageous and enchanting, learn "The White Tiger" (s) learn, this is how you transcendent.

"I wanted to flay any mental weakness off my body like fascia from muscle."

How complex is being human? In Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi allows her pen to dip into the complexes of human minds and it's myriad chemical transmutations: some giving birth to hatred, apartheid, racism and forms like "their kind has a taste for drugs", "their kind is likely the one who is poor and thus they steal", "their kind does not stay clean", some to being a victim of all of this, some to fighting all of this as Gifty says "I had to prove something and nothing but blazing brilliance was enough to prove it." Not only does Gyasi talks about the various dynamics of the mental weakness part but even travels through the land of America and the racism it so easily seeps out and does not even care, it is only recently that slowly the chain is breaking.

“Do we have control over our thoughts? When I was a child this was a religious question,” she says, “but it is also, of course, a neuroscientific question.” Gyasi talks about the narrow mindedness of both science and religion, same as Dan Brown discusses at length in his book Angels and Demons, about how scientists working along with her at Stanford are "atheists" and how her family "blindly believes God is everything and the reason for all not science".“The Christians in my life would find it blasphemous,” she says, “and the scientists would find it embarrassing.” It is amidst through this environment and surrounding that Gifty has to swerve through to emerge victorious at the other side: to find a new life, to grow out of the familial pain, to keep up with the world, to know her worth, to show her worth, but most importantly to find and build her own "transcendent kingdom" which would be beyond human touch and human troubles, where both extremes of science and religion merge and mingle to create magic.

Transcendent Kingdom is intense, in every sense of word. It's intensity creeps on you, slowly. You find yourself registering Gyasi’s most startling images — an egg with its shell dissolved; a mouse with a psychosomatic limp — only after you are through with the book and have kept it aside for sometime of quietness. It is deceptive, the quiet you are searching for, within all of that niceties there is someone screaming and caught inside a spider web of gossamer and darkness.

I was really looking forward to this book as Ive never read anything from Yaa Gyasi before and the synopsis really drew me in!

Unfortunately this book just didn’t grip me and it took me longer to get through than it should have as I just never wanted to pick it up. Overall I think I just found it a bit boring and it didn’t really seem to go anywhere! There was also a lot of talk of religion and science on this book too, which wasn’t necessarily to my liking.

I did enjoy the parts of the book where Gifty was talking about her childhood and relationship with her brother Nana and his addiction to Oxycontin was of course very sad and moving.

But overall there were just too many aspects of his book that I didn’t enjoy or found lacking. I have Yaas other book ‘HomeGoing’ to read on my Kindle and I will definitely still read it, although maybe not just yet.

A disappointing 2.5 stars for me!

What an incredible book. Gyasi's writing is exquisite. Having read this once I know I will read it again just to savour her sentences.