Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Giovannis Zimmer

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Giovannis Zimmer by James Baldwin

44 reviews

uparrowhead's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"Nobody can stay in the Garden of Eden"

I feel like there's nothing that I can truly put into words about this book that can do justice to the experience of reading it. Traversing through the pages of sorrow and melancholy of this novel felt like an unraveling journey that was slowly breaking me apart with each turn.

A classic which I think is a necessity to read for any queer person, James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room explores the turmoiled life of David – a man who left America in search of a more free life in Paris – and the developing relationship between him and Giovanni. Through the meandering narrative of David's life and the memories which he slowly recalls of both the past and the present, you're thrust into a story of depressing beauty laced in love and pain.

Conflicting sadness between desire and disgust mixes within the incredible writing and language of this novel, creating a fantastical read that I loved from start to finish. Reading through David's hatred for his own sexuality and the perpetual limbo he seems to be in when it comes to how he feels for Giovanni makes for a truly heart wretching story that I don't think I'll ever forget.

Accelerating, tragically romantic: an incredible story that I will never recover from, which brought me to tears by the end. I can't stress enough how masterfully crafted this is, and all I can ask is for more people to read the sickeningly beautiful narrative this remarkable novel puts through.

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ez_heath's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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kal517's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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pumpkinbisque's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

ouch! ouch ouch ouch! so pretty and so sad! being queer can be so beautiful and joyful but it can also be like this ouchie ouch!

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deliriah's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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artemisg's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

No matter how it seems now, I must confess: I loved him. I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again.

About ten pages into this book, I knew it would absolutely ruin me, and ruin me it did.

I stared out into the street. I was beginning to think of Giovanni dying—where Giovanni had been there would be nothing, nothing forever.

This is a truly devastating story about the struggle of queer men navigating their identities and hopes and dreams. It’s also a story about privileged young people being idiots with their hearts and the hearts of those they care about, a story about love and hatred - and the thin line between the two. It’s heartbreaking and gut-punching.

With this fearful intimation there opened in me a hatred for Giovanni which was as powerful as my love and which was nourished by the same roots.

Baldwin understands like no one else. He somehow managed to capture every experience known to man in this book.

“For a woman,” she said, “I think a man is always a stranger.”

I don’t have it in me for a coherent review, so instead, here are some lines that knocked the air out of my lungs:

“Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden,” Jacques said. And then: “I wonder why.”

“Well,” I said, “Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn’t what you feel in New York—” He was smiling. I stopped.
“What do you feel in New York?” he asked.
“Perhaps you feel,” I told him, “all the time to come.”

We had, in effect, been playing a deadly game and he was the winner. He was the winner in spite of the fact that I had cheated to win.

“Then I would have no job and I have only just found out that I want to live.”

“Somebody,” said Jacques, “your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour—and in the oddest places!—for the lack of it.” And then: “Here comes your baby. Sois sage. Sois chic. ”

He made me think of home—perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

My executioners are here with me, walking up and down with me, washing things and packing and drinking from my bottle. They are everywhere I turn. Walls, windows, mirrors, water, the night outside—they are everywhere.

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