Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Giovanni's Room

Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

12 reviews

sohva's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Beautiful, still makes me think of what it is wanting to say about love, life and home.

My only gripe woth this book was that the female characters were a bit... weird.

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maxgardner's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Well, this book absolutely destroyed me. Giovanni's Room is my first Baldwin, and it's beautifully written with characters that feel unique, but still real and well developed. I suppose there's no way this could have been a happy story considering it's about queer people in the 1950s, and really the brutality of the story reflects how dark and bleak life was for them at that time; primarily, Baldwin focuses on gay men and life from their perspective through the eyes of the main character, David. First of all, this story was illuminating for me because it provides a window into queer life 70 years ago. Obviously this story is fiction, but its core themes and many of David's experiences are drawn from Baldwin's life. It's fascinating to see, aside from some obvious differences with the times, just how many parallels there are between the struggles young queer people faced then and what they face now. Doubt, denial, disgust, self hate, suicidal thoughts and ideation, living this odd double life where you indulge your desires while simultaneously disassociating, seeing your actions as other from your identity, wishing you could be "normal" and maybe even trying to be in spite of the lack that life will leave you with. In true form to the queer experience, reading this book both gave me comfort in relating to this specific experience, to what feel like my people, and broke my heart knowing what that experience must have been like.

For a fairly short book, Giovanni's Room packs a huge punch and is a gold mine for literary analysis. Baldwin, in spite of having pretty terse prose, weaves these beautiful themes and motifs throughout that all intersect and complement each other. The idea of home as this place David wants to return to yet has never actually had in the sense of what he yearns for, the theme of otherness and lack of identity that David feels in how he's perceived as a foreigner and as a straight man, the violence of masculinity and self-repression, among so many others. The text is so rich with all of these really well thought out ideas, and I think that is in large part due to Baldwin's intrinsic understanding of what it feels like to be a gay man and to have lived with those struggles. Obviously there's imagination on display here in crafting these characters, but the depth of the story comes from a place of real pain and experience. This is a masterwork from Baldwin, and it seems like he is the only one who could have told this story.

This book made me feel nerdy again and want to write an essay. I can't wait to read it again in the future and see what new insights I can mine from it.

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em_the_cat's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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mkdeco's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was sad for a whole month after finishing this book. Everyone I thought about it it pangs my heart.

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imnotarke's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.25

this was an experience. a true depiction about the process of escape, acceptance, and grief. the characters were problematic, but real, and you are left wishing the best outcomes for them despite the flaws and distaste.

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purplehulk713's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

This book only truly interested me at the very end when Giovanni is calling David out on all his bullshit. It felt so much like what people consider “literature” otherwise—clever and well-thought-out, but too dense and tedious to read to be of any real enjoyment to anyone who’s not an English scholar (and I’m speaking as university writing minor). But as a landmark in queer fiction, it does deserve praise. I just wish that it didn’t make me want so much for it to be over while reading more than it made me enjoy its poetic prose and insights (David is so frustrating, and Jacques and Guillaume are disgusting). But facing the sincerity embodied in Giovanni’s room was a truly tantalizing subject.

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