I've been wrecked. Yaa Gyasi did it.

Simply put, this book is incredible. I was blown away by the writing on almost every page, and the narrative choices that Yaa Gyasi used were so poignant.

I've recently discovered that books made up of almost ... short stories? that are somehow still part of one narrative and plot are so interesting and just compulsively readable. The way that Gyasi takes you through so many generations of the two sisters was just EVERYTHING.

I learned a lot from the respective journeys of both sister's descendants, and it never felt as though it was being "info-dumped" on me; rather, it was seamlessly woven into the narrative and the character's choices. My heart broke for both the choices these characters had to make, and for the choices they were consistently not allowed to make.

Overall this was an absolutely stunning novel from Yaa Gyasi and I cannot wait to read her next novel, Transcendent Kingdom, which publishes in September 2020!

(...Also, this novel is stunning in another way - how stunningly it portrays that you do not have to be able to "relate to the characters" when a book is written well - I could relate to very little of what these characters endured, but I was still able to empathize and understand the motivations and fears and joys and heartaches and sadness and love. Just saying.)

(And also also, a beach read is a book that you read at the beach. What's that you ask? Oh, it's just me, dying on that hill.)