This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It deeply discusses the meaning of life, addiction, God, the importance of kith and kin, poverty, racism, and much more. It’s about Gifty, a woman who is a first generation American of Ghanian descent. She’s now doing her PhD at Stanford in neuroscience, studying the reward seeking behavior of mice. The author does an amazing job utilizing memories of Gifty’s past by jumping around different parts of her life to explore her thoughts on various topics. I found a lot of it particularly relatable since Gifty grew up in a low-income, single mother immigrant household. Because Gifty came from vastly different experiences from those she was around, it became somewhat isolating for her. I’ve definitely felt this way before, and this book does a brilliant job expressing these emotions.

Although I’m not very religious, I found it interesting how Gifty reconciles her belief in God over time in contrast to her views as a scientist, which the author excellently portrays by going back and forth from childhood to adulthood. Shifting from past-to-present really helps hit home how her ideas changed on science and religion in childhood, undergrad, and the present-day.