parkersjoint's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-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? No
3.0
joeyrei's review against another edition
3.0
"There is something romantic about the changing of seasons. A romance reminiscent of an unending summer, or one as fleeting as spring and fall."
kristinaviham's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
_desertbookreader's review against another edition
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
brettcarl's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
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
2.75
An exploration into male sexuality in the black community, Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris is an intriguing and mostly enjoyable read.
Critically, no single element of this book is flawless, whether its the prose, world-building, themes, characters or plot, each element has room for improvement, but each element is at least satisfying. Case in point, the examination of intersectionality between race, gender and sexuality is touched upon and integrated into the story well, also all the characters have distinct personalities, and significantly, thet are feel real, human. Furthermore, probably the strongest element of the novel was its tone and atmosphere, in particularly not only did the novel feel very 90s, which helped flesh out the story's world and themes, but also the added details to black culture - food, music, etc - also legitimised many elements of the story too.
Thus, while I did enjoy reading Harris's novel, issues such as a meandering plot with a disappointing conclusion, as well as overly simplistic prose which -as previously stated - was easy to read, but meant that many elements of the novel were lacking much needed depth which means I cannot highly rate this novel regardless of how much I may like certain aspects.
Critically, no single element of this book is flawless, whether its the prose, world-building, themes, characters or plot, each element has room for improvement, but each element is at least satisfying. Case in point, the examination of intersectionality between race, gender and sexuality is touched upon and integrated into the story well, also all the characters have distinct personalities, and significantly, thet are feel real, human. Furthermore, probably the strongest element of the novel was its tone and atmosphere, in particularly not only did the novel feel very 90s, which helped flesh out the story's world and themes, but also the added details to black culture - food, music, etc - also legitimised many elements of the story too.
Thus, while I did enjoy reading Harris's novel, issues such as a meandering plot with a disappointing conclusion, as well as overly simplistic prose which -as previously stated - was easy to read, but meant that many elements of the novel were lacking much needed depth which means I cannot highly rate this novel regardless of how much I may like certain aspects.
ruthie's review against another edition
ahhhhhhhh. I know I've said before that I don't know how to rate something, but I truly, genuinely have no idea what to rate this. I kind of hated it. a lot. but then I kinda loved it a little bit? but not really? I don't know.
to start with what I hatedwhich was most of it:
1. the writing. jesus christ. everyone's skin color had to be overly described, usually as food. "papersack brown skin" "oatmeal colored sin" "sandy colored skin" "charcoal black skin" "pecan brown skin" "cinnamon brown skin".... please I'm suffering. Also, the story was around 80% tell and 20% show, and for the first 25% I'd say it was exclusively "tell." it was just Raymond, the main character, updating you on what had happened for that week or that month and almost never letting you experience it directly (never mind the abrupt six year time jump between chapters 2 and 3).
2. the plot. the first half of the book is incredibly disjointed and meandering and you truly can't tell where the book is going. all Raymond was talking about was his girlfriend Sela and the guy he'd met and started sleeping with, Kelvin. this goes on for the first two chapters (which is not an insignificant portion of time; it was about an hour of an eight-hour audiobook).
in the middle of those two chapters I looked up the synopsis again, knowing it was something about a man not being able to choose between his girlfriend and his male lover, only to realize that the names in the synopsis weren't Sela or Kelvin, but Nicole and Quinn, who I'm pretty sure you don't meet until like chapter 5. it made the beginning feel simultaneously slow and fast - in chapter 1, Raymond sleeps with a man for the first time, pretty much the same day he meets him, after minimal discussion of the fact that he's never been interested in men before. then it goes on to tell you about him cheating on Sela for months, and right when you think something's happening, there's a six year time jump and oh yeah, Sela and Kelvin are out of the picture, Raymond has only gay friends besides the token hag friend, he lives in NYC instead of Alabama, and let's just start the story over again.
and it literally does: he meets a girl he falls in love with, Nicole, and promptly starts cheating on her with Quinn. and then gets mad when he discovers Quinn has a wife and kids (???). and he loves Nicole and kinda wants to marry her but he's still sleeping with Quinn, and oh life is so hard. oh and some other stuff is happening sometimes, someone dies, ambiguous not-quite-happy ending, the end.
3. the sex scenes. maybe it's because this was written in the 90s, I don't know, but Raymond exclusively referred to his dick as his "sex", which was weird. he also pretty much exclusively referred to sex as "love-making," often with the word "vigorous" in front of it. the times the sex was actually described in detail - which thankfully was not a ton - it was super methodical and clunky and just. weird.
the things I didn't hate, on the other hand, are not quite as specific. most of it is just a general appreciation for what this was, and what it represents, considering the time it was written: a novel about a black bisexual man coming to terms with his identity and how that impacts the ones he loves.
I don't think it is at all fair to categorize this as "bad rep" because you are using 2020 standards for something written almost 30 years ago, that was written frankly and unapologetically in a way I imagine not many gay novels were at the time. yes, Raymond and most of the characters have a misunderstanding of what bisexual really means, but when most of the gay men you know have girlfriends or wives, of course you're not going to understand it when someone really is attracted to men and women. and even Raymond himself didn't understand, because he had no one else to look towards for guidance.
I've also gone back and forth on how I feel about the cheating. I mean, there is constant cheating throughout this book. Raymond cheats on Sela with Kelvin; Sela (later) cheats on her fiancé with Ray; Ray cheats on Nicole with Quinn, who is cheating on his wife with Ray. and it's kind of implied that Kelvin cheated on his fiancé Candance with at least one man. and it's all frustrating as fuck, especially when essentially all of the characters act like it's harmless to cheat if you're not married. it definitely colored my view of Ray. but the more I read, the more I started looking at it from their perspective, and out of my 2020-biased lens. as Ray points out, many gay men were not monogamous in the 90s. some became so after the AIDS crisis first began, but most still had girlfriends and wives, appearances to keep up, and instead just chose to have safe sex on the side. living in a time where it's basically assumed that if you're gay or bi, your goal is to eventually be able to come out of the closet, find your true love and ride off into the sunset puking rainbows, et cetera, it's easy to judge these characters for acting like monogamy is pointless or unheard of. but if your goals and expectations are completely different, and if you're only able to be gay on the side or with select friends who are either also gay or very trustworthy, of course monogamy would be impossible. all this to say, while I never liked the cheating in the story, it feels wrong to pass too much judgment.
which brings me to my next point: I like that this book just was what it was. it was honest, and it was unapologetic, and it made me think and feel things I was not expecting. every character in here is deeply flawed, but none of them are bad people. they're just fucking people. they're real, and their personalities were distinctive and varied in ways I don't see enough in the kind of fiction I'm consuming. (to be fair I am not usually reading Real Literature That Has Something Important To Say bc I'm all about the gay romance, but like, still.) their actions were infuriating and understandable and relatable and real. I especially loved Ray's journey with his father in the last portion of the book, and the palpable struggle they had to meet in the middle of their differences.
lastly, the underlying current of Invisible Life was AIDS. until the very end, it was never necessarily at the forefront - just Ray mentioning that he'd been tested, that he was negative, that gay men were meticulous about wearing condoms, specifically, while straight women were content with any form of birth control - but it was always present, a reflection of the time in which it was published. in his author's note, Harris mentions that this was in part dedicated to the black women who were suffering disproportionately from AIDS. as it's laid out in Invisible Life, HIV could spread incredibly quickly to straight people, because they didn't see it as something that affected "their" community. but many straight women - like Sela, like Nicole, like Candance, like Quinn's wife - never knew and never would have known that their boyfriends or husbands were sleeping with men as well. I don't know what else to say about this part of the story other than to say that it is clearly authentic and well done, and unlike some other stories about HIV and the AIDS epidemic that I've heard of, this one is wholly centered on the impact of AIDS on black men and black women.
so. now that I've rambled on and on about my complex feelings for this book, I guess I have to rate it. maybe. two stars seems harsh, considering how much I appreciated what this story had to say, but four stars seems too much, considering how much I genuinely fucking hated the writing. and three stars is just so.... ambivalent. it's a literal average rating, that I pop out when something is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and I know I'm probably never gonna think about it again. it doesn't feel fair to slap a forgettable three stars on this. can I leave it at no rating?? like I know a rating is not required but also. it always feels required. I always have Opinions on what I've read and those Opinions equate to an easy to conceptualize rating. but maybe some Opinions just aren't ratable.
to start with what I hated
1. the writing. jesus christ. everyone's skin color had to be overly described, usually as food. "papersack brown skin" "oatmeal colored sin" "sandy colored skin" "charcoal black skin" "pecan brown skin" "cinnamon brown skin".... please I'm suffering. Also, the story was around 80% tell and 20% show, and for the first 25% I'd say it was exclusively "tell." it was just Raymond, the main character, updating you on what had happened for that week or that month and almost never letting you experience it directly (never mind the abrupt six year time jump between chapters 2 and 3).
2. the plot. the first half of the book is incredibly disjointed and meandering and you truly can't tell where the book is going. all Raymond was talking about was his girlfriend Sela and the guy he'd met and started sleeping with, Kelvin. this goes on for the first two chapters (which is not an insignificant portion of time; it was about an hour of an eight-hour audiobook).
in the middle of those two chapters I looked up the synopsis again, knowing it was something about a man not being able to choose between his girlfriend and his male lover, only to realize that the names in the synopsis weren't Sela or Kelvin, but Nicole and Quinn, who I'm pretty sure you don't meet until like chapter 5. it made the beginning feel simultaneously slow and fast - in chapter 1, Raymond sleeps with a man for the first time, pretty much the same day he meets him, after minimal discussion of the fact that he's never been interested in men before. then it goes on to tell you about him cheating on Sela for months, and right when you think something's happening, there's a six year time jump and oh yeah, Sela and Kelvin are out of the picture, Raymond has only gay friends besides the token hag friend, he lives in NYC instead of Alabama, and let's just start the story over again.
and it literally does: he meets a girl he falls in love with, Nicole, and promptly starts cheating on her with Quinn. and then gets mad when he discovers Quinn has a wife and kids (???). and he loves Nicole and kinda wants to marry her but he's still sleeping with Quinn, and oh life is so hard. oh and some other stuff is happening sometimes, someone dies, ambiguous not-quite-happy ending, the end.
3. the sex scenes. maybe it's because this was written in the 90s, I don't know, but Raymond exclusively referred to his dick as his "sex", which was weird. he also pretty much exclusively referred to sex as "love-making," often with the word "vigorous" in front of it. the times the sex was actually described in detail - which thankfully was not a ton - it was super methodical and clunky and just. weird.
the things I didn't hate, on the other hand, are not quite as specific. most of it is just a general appreciation for what this was, and what it represents, considering the time it was written: a novel about a black bisexual man coming to terms with his identity and how that impacts the ones he loves.
I don't think it is at all fair to categorize this as "bad rep" because you are using 2020 standards for something written almost 30 years ago, that was written frankly and unapologetically in a way I imagine not many gay novels were at the time. yes, Raymond and most of the characters have a misunderstanding of what bisexual really means, but when most of the gay men you know have girlfriends or wives, of course you're not going to understand it when someone really is attracted to men and women. and even Raymond himself didn't understand, because he had no one else to look towards for guidance.
I've also gone back and forth on how I feel about the cheating. I mean, there is constant cheating throughout this book. Raymond cheats on Sela with Kelvin; Sela (later) cheats on her fiancé with Ray; Ray cheats on Nicole with Quinn, who is cheating on his wife with Ray. and it's kind of implied that Kelvin cheated on his fiancé Candance with at least one man. and it's all frustrating as fuck, especially when essentially all of the characters act like it's harmless to cheat if you're not married. it definitely colored my view of Ray. but the more I read, the more I started looking at it from their perspective, and out of my 2020-biased lens. as Ray points out, many gay men were not monogamous in the 90s. some became so after the AIDS crisis first began, but most still had girlfriends and wives, appearances to keep up, and instead just chose to have safe sex on the side. living in a time where it's basically assumed that if you're gay or bi, your goal is to eventually be able to come out of the closet, find your true love and ride off into the sunset puking rainbows, et cetera, it's easy to judge these characters for acting like monogamy is pointless or unheard of. but if your goals and expectations are completely different, and if you're only able to be gay on the side or with select friends who are either also gay or very trustworthy, of course monogamy would be impossible. all this to say, while I never liked the cheating in the story, it feels wrong to pass too much judgment.
which brings me to my next point: I like that this book just was what it was. it was honest, and it was unapologetic, and it made me think and feel things I was not expecting. every character in here is deeply flawed, but none of them are bad people. they're just fucking people. they're real, and their personalities were distinctive and varied in ways I don't see enough in the kind of fiction I'm consuming. (to be fair I am not usually reading Real Literature That Has Something Important To Say bc I'm all about the gay romance, but like, still.) their actions were infuriating and understandable and relatable and real. I especially loved Ray's journey with his father in the last portion of the book, and the palpable struggle they had to meet in the middle of their differences.
lastly, the underlying current of Invisible Life was AIDS. until the very end, it was never necessarily at the forefront - just Ray mentioning that he'd been tested, that he was negative, that gay men were meticulous about wearing condoms, specifically, while straight women were content with any form of birth control - but it was always present, a reflection of the time in which it was published. in his author's note, Harris mentions that this was in part dedicated to the black women who were suffering disproportionately from AIDS. as it's laid out in Invisible Life, HIV could spread incredibly quickly to straight people, because they didn't see it as something that affected "their" community. but many straight women - like Sela, like Nicole, like Candance, like Quinn's wife - never knew and never would have known that their boyfriends or husbands were sleeping with men as well. I don't know what else to say about this part of the story other than to say that it is clearly authentic and well done, and unlike some other stories about HIV and the AIDS epidemic that I've heard of, this one is wholly centered on the impact of AIDS on black men and black women.
so. now that I've rambled on and on about my complex feelings for this book, I guess I have to rate it. maybe. two stars seems harsh, considering how much I appreciated what this story had to say, but four stars seems too much, considering how much I genuinely fucking hated the writing. and three stars is just so.... ambivalent. it's a literal average rating, that I pop out when something is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and I know I'm probably never gonna think about it again. it doesn't feel fair to slap a forgettable three stars on this. can I leave it at no rating?? like I know a rating is not required but also. it always feels required. I always have Opinions on what I've read and those Opinions equate to an easy to conceptualize rating. but maybe some Opinions just aren't ratable.
tasha_fullybooked's review against another edition
4.0
This novel chronicles the life and discovery of Raymond Tyler who is struggling with his sexuality. Raymond has had one serious girlfriend since high school until his senior year in college when he falls in love with a man. Raymond has to keep his sexuality a secret because not only is his male love a jock, but they are both black and living in the South.
After college Raymond moves to NYC and leads a somewhat more open bisexual life. He frequents gay bars and has both straight and gay sexual encounters but only the men he has sex with no about the women in his life. Raymond never discloses to the women that he is having sex with that he is also having sex with men.
Raymond runs into the first man he has ever had sex with who is newly engaged to a woman. She too has no idea of the previous relationship her fiancé has had with Raymond. At this time Raymond is newly involved with a married man with kids.
This story kept me engrossed because these situations happen more than people realize. I was drawn in and wanted to see if Raymond would end up settling down with a man or a woman. Or if his bisexuality would cause him to never truly find love because if he settles down with one gender, he’ll have to give up the other.
In the end, I felt that Raymond’s story was left unfinished. I didn’t get any closure with neither of Raymond’s relationships. So hopefully I'll get that in the next book of the series.
After college Raymond moves to NYC and leads a somewhat more open bisexual life. He frequents gay bars and has both straight and gay sexual encounters but only the men he has sex with no about the women in his life. Raymond never discloses to the women that he is having sex with that he is also having sex with men.
Raymond runs into the first man he has ever had sex with who is newly engaged to a woman. She too has no idea of the previous relationship her fiancé has had with Raymond. At this time Raymond is newly involved with a married man with kids.
This story kept me engrossed because these situations happen more than people realize. I was drawn in and wanted to see if Raymond would end up settling down with a man or a woman. Or if his bisexuality would cause him to never truly find love because if he settles down with one gender, he’ll have to give up the other.
In the end, I felt that Raymond’s story was left unfinished. I didn’t get any closure with neither of Raymond’s relationships. So hopefully I'll get that in the next book of the series.
ipollock009's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
sawya1523's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
thebookishgatsby's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
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
3.75