It pains me to give 3 stars to a book so beloved and so well written. This is absolutely a situatition where "it's not you, it's me" applies. 
 Gyasi is an extremely talented writer who's able to weave a beautiful web around the reader. I very simply just didn't care for the first portion of the book and it's not her fault at all - it's nothing the writer did; all the fault lies with me, the reader. 
 The stories of Effia and Esi, born in 18th century Ghana, simply didn't capture my attention. I found these stories and the time spent on the slave trade to be slogs to get through. As a consumer of books/movies/TV, I simply have an aversion to these types of stories, primarily because I tire of them being the only representations of blacks, other than the American Civil Rights movement, deemed worthy of portrayal. 
 Once we moved to Willie and Robert moving from the south to Harlem, I was engaged, intrigued and in love. From there on out, I found this book to be heartbreaking and gorgeous. I didn't want to leave the characters we met and I was sad to have the novel end.