Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - Real Life

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

26 reviews

nova123's review against another edition

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

4.75

Made me cry on the train as well. Very beautiful written book with an extremely emotional depiction of the life of a black gay man in the Midwest ... but also so unhopeful at the end that I'm not sure if I would recommend it 💀

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mr_cain's review against another edition

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4.75

All too real. Rips your heart in two and forces you to confront how you exist in the world.

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celinbean's review against another edition

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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

4.75

Wallace truly is the og traumatized pathological people pleaser and it was a little heartbreaking to read his responses. All of this was honestly a lot to take in. This felt like a character study with wallace as the very observant narrator to whom no detail was too small but who also turned inward a lot to inspect his feelings. But despite that inward look i feel like we just reached the acknowledgement stage of his grief and trauma.

The whole friend group actually gave me anxiety bc they were all so mean and almost indifferent to each others feelings? And unwilling to actually try to understand each other? I also wanted to root for miller so much but the ending was not… entirely satisfying with what he did. I would’ve liked it if wallace actually found someone who’s gentle and who stands up for him but i guess i would’ve had to read a romance book if i wanted a true happy ending 🥲

Nevertheless this was such an addictive read that was wholly unexpected because ive been in a kind of slump where ive only really been reading/ listening to audiobooks. I quite literally could not stop reading and that hasn’t happened for me in a while. The prose was stunningly beautiful.

TW: rape of a child, sexual assault of a child, racism, disordered eating + vomiting

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jcinf's review

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dark 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

4.0

I have a tough time rating this one.

First, I appreciated the portrayal of tokenism and racism in LGBTQ+ spaces.

Two things I had mixed feelings toward (I promise no spoilers):

Wallace’s friend group felt “meh” at best. I get that the author probably wanted to portray Wallace as being an outcast in his group. I know that’s the core part of the narrative here. ** BUT, I couldn’t tell… was Wallace having a hard time reconciling his friends’ problematic qualities against their redeemable traits? Or were they just shitty people that he became “friends” with solely out of proximity? It was well written, but I would have appreciated more clarity on this.
Wallace’s dynamic with another character in the book. I won’t say who so I don’t spoil it. It’s hard for authors to walk the line between glorifying abuse and simply portraying it. I think in large pet he just portrayed in, but in certain parts I felt like it was getting perhaps a little close to romanticizing it. The second to last chapter brought those feelings up for me.

Overall, though, I felt largely positively about this book. A handful of the things I liked:

The descriptiveness was stunning.
The dialogue was realistic and appropriately emotional.
The depiction of nuanced grief and the way some people try to simplify it.
This one is a loose spoiler as far as character growth, but doesn’t reveal any specific plot points.
The acknowledgment that Wallace can be self-absorbed. Butttt also giving him wiggle room to be that way because of his intersecting struggles due to his sexuality, race, economic class, and generally feeling behind in his academics.
.

As a whole, this book was wonderfully written. But it wasn’t really an enjoyable read because it was so damn sad lol.

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jennaclarek's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

okay so either i am bad at reading summaries (likely) or nobody had the foresight to tell me this is apart of the "toxic friendgroups who are all a little in love with each other but also hate each other" universe (less likely)...because holy cow i wasn't expecting this powerhouse. immediately from the get go i was compelled by the writing, the characters, and the overall tone of this book. it's so well written, the prose is just breathtaking, and i really will need to pick it up again to underline all the fantastic passages in here. it touches on so many of my favorite things - academia, the complexities of queer friendship, grief...

this is a very dark book - it touches on some heavy topics, and overall there aren't a lot of positive scenes. it has flickers of light throughout, but a lot of it is unfair and a little hopeless and incredibly frustrating. but i think it's such a fantastic book because brandon taylor does not shy away from the darkness. the whole point of the book IS the darkness. that real life is like this. it's messy and chaotic and white people do ruin everything and sometimes "i'm sorry" isn't good enough, it's never good enough, but we all just walk around lying to each other saying we're fine and that's fine.

i don't have anything innovative to say! it's just a damn good book! and i will be revisiting in the future because it has so much incredible prose and the Point is Poignant. i could not put it down. i will be thinking about it for a long time.

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