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A review by anpu325
The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White
3.0
cw: racism, pedophilia
This book really gave me similar feelings to the first book in the trilogy. His prose is so beautiful and reading about someone's queer experiences in a place that I had inhabited, my college this time, was moving. However, it was really hard to sympathize with the protagonist since he was kind of a jerk. Also, the same issue as in the first book with using racist tropes and a seeming acceptance of pedophilia. The queer love and the uplifting ending were moving, but were ultimately not enough in my mind to redeem a book that turned my stomach at times.
This book really gave me similar feelings to the first book in the trilogy. His prose is so beautiful and reading about someone's queer experiences in a place that I had inhabited, my college this time, was moving. However, it was really hard to sympathize with the protagonist since he was kind of a jerk. Also, the same issue as in the first book with using racist tropes and a seeming acceptance of pedophilia. The queer love and the uplifting ending were moving, but were ultimately not enough in my mind to redeem a book that turned my stomach at times.