Reviews with content warning for Racism - Girl, Woman, Other

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

363 reviews

igotcourt's review against another edition

I liked the concept, but it was getting too long and I was so disinterested in any new characters. Felt like I just experienced their worst moments and didn’t see any arc. Didn’t feel inspired to read on. I also wasn’t ready for the amount of assault and the emotionally graphic detail.

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sammy_nor's review against another edition

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emotional reflective

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

this is going to sound super cliche, but this was truly unlike anything i’ve read before. just, wow. the only complaint i had was that i was having a hard time picturing the characters after a while (which is a me problem so it doesn’t really count)

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carlottab13's review

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.75

In five acts the life’s stories of eleven black women and one non-binary character are told which then slowly start to intertwine with each other. Evaristo assembled an astonishing array of emotions, relationships, struggles and paths of life in this narration that were at times hard to read and difficult to process. Just like a number of here characters described of feeling out of place and not fitting the norm, so does the novel’s writing style as it breaks traditionally grammatical rules (Google is saying it’s Fusion Fiction). The free-form writing style stripped of most of its punctuation felt complimentary to the narration and its contents. As of now my favourite story was Hattie’s. Highly encourage everyone to pick this up when they have the time and emotional capacity. Check trigger/content warnings beforehand!

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amy_park's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

Girl, Woman, Other has been on my TBR for ages! Regrettably, I should have read this earlier, it was great! Following 12 central individuals in Britain exploring generational womanhood, identity and feminism, I loved how all the stories connected at the end and how each character had a distinctive voice.
This was a book you should read at a slower pace, to try and digest the details for the many characters. A wonderful book to re-read both physically and via audio.
At times I did feel the themes were relentlessly dark and depressing which did stop me from picking it back up as much as I wanted to, although this did make the stories believable and a true reflection of the struggles and events in life.
I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend, I will definitely be reading more by Bernadine in the future and will revist Girl, Woman, Other again.

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danielles_reads's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

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

3.75

I had high expectations for this one, because even though I don't read much litfic, I'd heard so many people rave about this. And while I can understand why people love this, it wasn't a new favorite for me. I did really enjoy following along with some of the characters (mostly the older ones—Bummi and Hattie were my favorites), but some of them were either extremely unlikeable or just felt like they were there to check a box. A lot of these stories felt like the author making a list of the most traumatic thing that could happen to a person, and then creating an entire character around that. And some of the stories felt like they didn't really delve into the long-lasting effects of these traumatic events as much as they should have. Most of the stories ended so abruptly too, and I was sad to get to the end of Bummi and Hattie's stories.

I'm always a sucker for interconnected short stories, so I really enjoyed seeing the different connections here. I also enjoyed getting to see the same situation from different characters' POVs, as I love seeing how people interpret things differently. Some stories had me wanting to go back and reread to directly compare. The ending definitely elevated the book entirely for me, as I teared up a bit.

Even though it is unrealistic for Penelope to change her racist mind so quickly, I could really feel both her and Hattie's emotions at finally being reunited in their old ages. Very heartwarming.

The afterparty at the end bringing a lot of the characters together was fun, though Amma and her crew were the least interesting in the story to me, so it was disappointing to me that the book focused on her and her friends and family in the last bit. I really did not care about Rowland at all, and it felt extremely out of place to focus on a man in the epilogue?? Weird.

Yazz was my least favorite character of everyone. I actually had to take a break from the book for a bit during her chapter because she was so goddamn annoying. At first I thought man, Evaristo really nailed the self-importance of teenagers, but then it just started feeling very fake and moralizing. Like when her white girl friend was lecturing Yazz on intersectional feminism 101... like come on. Amma and Dominique acted in similar ways too, constantly going on about feminism that was just tiring (especially since they were revealed to be TERFs at the end...). Like I know this already, these characters are not coming off as intellectual activists like I think was intended. Dominique's story was really heartwrenching though, and it was great to see her

regain her independence after an abusive relationship (and not just men can be abusers)

.

Carole's story was really sad, especially

the gang rape when she was 13, like holy shit, that was a lot.

And the whole discussion around her losing her Nigerian culture to assimilate into full English mode just to be successful was sad too. I loved getting Bummi's side of things, even though she was incredibly immature. I mean, she didn't talk to her daughter for two whole months, what the fuck. I was so invested in all her relationships though, and cried at her losses. It was great to go back to LaTisha's story after Carole's, though right when I was starting to get invested, her story ended.

Shirley's story was alright, I guess. It was sad to see her lose her love for teaching as the system wore her down. Winsome's story was... kinda awful honestly.

Sleeping with her son-in-law?? That was so random and weird.

Penelope's story was alright (I did cheer for her being able to

divorce her husband in order to work as a teacher

) but the ending did redeem her.

Morgan's story was interesting because the gender politics of that section felt soooo outdated, even though this book is only 5 years old. It's interesting how much the queer community has changed in the last few years. Like I did not expect to hear "transsexual" be referred to as the correct term. I can't speak to the accuracy of the representation but I did like the character and how they grew into their relationship with Bibi. Hattie was definitely my favorite though. I love her dedication to her farm and her family. Grace's story was really sad, especially after Hattie's.

Overall I did like this, and I would recommend to people who like interconnected short stories.

Characters: 4

Plot / Pacing: 3.5

Setting / World Building: 4

Writing Style: 3.5

Themes: 3.5

Rating: 3.75

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whackettreading's review against another edition

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funny reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

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rosieeg's review against another edition

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It was pretty boring and the writing style was really weird - the lack of full stops or quote marks made it tricky to read smoothly! It also had like no plot whatsoever. The description said it had 'diverse characters' but it started to feel quite repetitive to me - there were at least a couple who had alcoholic/neglectful parents, toxic relationships, immigrated or who were straight and then had relationships with women. It seemed to be filled with a lot of descriptions of the characters trauma which wasn't very interesting tbh! Also they wrote a sex scene for every character (some even had multiple) which just seemed completely unnecessary and again got boring and repetitive!

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