Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
I liked the episodic nature of this–short segments of different characters, alternating continents and progressing through time. It clearly has its social message about race and slavery, but it always felt like humanity, not politics, was driving the book.
To me the most memorable chapters were the American ones, probably because they were more familiar so easier to picture. (But does that also say something about the richness of description?) The point–the devastation wrought by slavery in Africa and on Africans here–was well made, though I don’t think we needed to make the last generation a sociologist who explicitly links each stage of devastation to the next.
Amy P. Knight 