hp’s Reviews > Homegoing > Status Update

“Them. Them. Always them. No one called them by name. No one in the group spoke. They all stood still, waiting. For what, Marcus didn’t know. Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else.” So, yeah. I’m sitting at Shoal Creek trying not to weep. God, the fucking symbolism and parallels. I wanna scream and cry and vomit. I’m gonna need a day before I write my review.

I can’t believe I’m done with the Ghanaian lineage. I need more. “Instinctively, Marjorie raised her hand to the necklace…It had belonged to Old Lady and to Abena before her, and to James, and Quey, and Effia the Beauty before that. It had begun with Maame, the woman who had set a great fire.” I can’t stop thinking about the other stone left in the slave chambers of the castle. About how Esi was erased.

Fuck me. “It makes me sad to see my son a junkie after all the marchin’ I done, but makes me sadder to see you thinkin’ you can leave like your daddy did. You keep doin’ what you doin’ and the white man don’t got to do it no more. He ain’t got to sell you or put you in a coal mine to own you. He’ll own you just as is, he’ll say you the one who did it. He’ll say it’s your fault.” Yeah. Yeah.

At the end of every chapter I’m a little disappointed bc I want more. I would read whole books about any of these characters. But I have what I have which is still brilliance. “The longer he looked at himself in a mirror, the longer he lived alone, the longer the country he loved stayed under colonial rule, the angrier he became.” I can’t believe I only have one more chapter in Ghana. I need more 😩

One of the things this book does so well is showing the intersection of blackness and whiteness, but also woman and man. I hate Robert and I hate Eli, and yet at the same time I can’t fault them for the choices they made. “Willie shook her head. ‘No, Carson. We can’t go any further. I think it’s time we go back.’” All I know is that Willie deserved better. At least in the end she sings.

The plot twists in this one got me. There is something so truly evil about the demonization of African religion. Who do you become when the thing that holds your worldview together is deemed an abomination? “What kind of evil does not know itself?” And who do you become when you go back? “They would not tell her where they had put Abee and Ama Serwah. They would not say anything at all”

Men fucking suck is the moral of this story. “She didn’t make a scene. Instead, she turned and began walking, past the people dancing, past her parents crying, walking until she found the floor of her hut and lay down on it, one hand clutching her heart and the other clutching her stomach.” Both Ohene and her father’s choices lead her destitute and utterly alone. I think the next wing of this story will hurt

So I finally broke down and cried over this chapter. I didn’t have time to talk about it yesterday bc I was reeling then I picked up a hitchhiker. I have a lot of thoughts about this chapter. Far too many for the limited amount of characters I’m able to have in an update. But I will certainly talk more about it in my final review. Just absolutely gutting. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this one.

“The Asante had power from capturing slaves. The Fante had protection from trading them. If the girl could not shake his hand, then surely she could never touch her own.” This chapter was a little happier. It was about personhood and choosing a different path than the one you were born to. About wanting to be more than another cog. About a simple life. No need for power. No need for money. Just love. Twas sweet.

I am quickly becoming mentally unwell. “He would not be weak. He was in the business of slavery, and sacrifices had to be made.” The perception of weakness is the most fruitless and seemingly futile aspect of our patriarchal society. It’s sad to see it smother a man and make him the thing he hated most. This one was randomly gay. But how that affection was quickly squashed in the name of power was devastating.