It appears I only read 2 books throughout the entire month of August. Who am I and what I have done with my real self ?

 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

“We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So, when you study history, you must always ask yourself, whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story, too. From there, you begin to get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.”

How Yaa Gyasi is able to beautifully and painfully tell the story of 2 families separate journeys, over several generations, is completely beyond me.

The story begins with Effia and Esi, two half sisters from a village in Ghana. Effia is married off to a British soldier and Esi is sold into slavery. We continue to follow their separate lives and the growth of their family tree even long after Effia and Esi are no longer in the picture.

There is something so intense and heartbreaking about seeing the history of slavery being played out.

The thought process, time, detail that goes into writing a story like this, the anticipation from the reader to hopefully see everything come full circle…I’m in awe, and I honestly don’t think anything I say would do this story justice.

The Year I Met You by Cecelia Ahern

My rating: 3/5 stars

“Most people in our lives don’t have to actively do anything to change us, they simply need to be.”

Someone asked me what this book was about when I was maybe just a hundred pages in and I said something along the lines of: “seems like its your typical boy meets girl, girl meets boy fall in love story”. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong, which honestly was a pleasant surprise.

This book is truly about friendship. The unexpectedness of it, the importance of it, the necessity of it.

When Jasmine is suddenly fired and put on a 1 year garden leave, she is restless and unsure of how to bide her time. She resorts to people watching, or rather, person watching – her person of choice in particular is the neighbour across the street, controversial radio host Matt Marshall. Matt is also going through a life crisis – he has recently been suspended from his job and after many nights of coming home drunk, his wife has finally left him and taken the kids with her.

Without realizing, Jasmine and Matt begin to help each other through their respective situations and a remarkable friendship is born.

The Year I Met You is a reminder that we won’t always have everything figured out and that we need people more than we’d like to admit that we do.