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

This book was definitely a unique experience. It told the story of twelve (mostly Black) women in Britain and things they had to deal with and overcome. They were slightly interwoven with each other, be it by family ties, by being friends, or just by simply having been in each other's lives for a while. It got a bit hard for me later in the book to remember all the characters sometimes, because each chapter introduced a bunch of new characters that sometimes sporadically showed up again later, but for the most part, I loved that format.

The writing style was probably something that some people will struggle with. There were no quotation marks, almost no capitalised words, and instead of ending sentences with a period, Evaristo simply wrote the next sentence on a new line. I have to say I'm kind of a sucker for a style like this, even if it did seem a bit pretentious and hard to read at times (especially during dialogue, because it could be hard to keep track of who was saying what). But I have to say that if you struggle with writing styles à la Sally Rooney, you will probably also struggle with this one - possibly more so, even.

To be honest, the writing was almost a bit too advanced for me? I didn't always quite understand what characters were talking about and it made little sense to me. Which, obviously, was mostly a me-problem.

The topics were tough to read sometimes. Evaristo covered a big variety of issues. Some of them were omnipotent in every chapter, like the racism that Black people and Black women in general face in Britain, or the rampant misogyny and sexism. Other themes were only there in a specific chapter or specific chapters, like teenage pregnancies, drug addiction, miscarriages, or (gang) rape. I'd definitely recommend checking the trigger warnings first if you've got big triggers. Admittedly, sometimes some of the topics were too easy to overcome. For example, the drug addict got over her addiction simply by going cold turkey for a week and then never fell back into addiction anymore. There was sometime nothing specific that actually helped the women overcome their struggles and trauma; it was simply by pure will.

Some of the feminism that Evaristo wrote also felt a bit problematic and non-inclusive, especially when it came to trans rights. One of the chapters was about a non-binary person, and while I could deal with them getting misgendered and deadnamed in their own chapter - they didn't know yet at the beginning of the chapter that they were even non-binary to begin with -, I didn't understand while they kept getting misgendered in many of the later chapters, too. A lot of the transphobia just wasn't called out enough.

The character portrayal was done pretty well. The characters were mostly not very likeable and didn't differ from one another that much sometimes, but Evaristo explored their psyches a lot, which I liked. Also, I don't think a character necessarily needs to be likeable to be interesting to read about. Like I said, I did occasionally have trouble remembering characters, but it was usually not that hard to figure out who I was reading about again.

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parasolcrafter's review against another edition

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emotional funny 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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anapthine's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny informative reflective 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

4.75

Really enjoyed.

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choc0late_milk's review

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informative inspiring reflective 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

3.5

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peachani's review against another edition

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challenging emotional 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? No

5.0

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brittenypark's review

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challenging emotional informative reflective slow-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

3.5

The book is a good read for appreciating different prospectives. I love the range of characters portrayed.

However there are a few things that I disliked about the writing, the two main ones being the way the author writes young people gives all young people this characterisation of being over-sensitive and arrogant, the other is the structure for the writing with minimal punctuation and capitalisation which was a bit hard to follow if your distracted while reading.

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-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

4.0

I generally enjoy books that jump from one perspective to another, and this is no exception. I liked slowly realizing how each of the characters connected with the others. I will admit, however, that some of the narratives ran together, and some narratives were a lot more fleshed out than others.

The one thing I didn't like flat out was the way trans topics were handled in the book. I thought it was great to read about Morgan's understanding of themselves and their loving long-term relationship. However, the other characters in the book repeated anti-trans talking points almost completely unchallenged. Given the growing anti-trans sentiment in Britain in particular, plus the fact that so few cis people claim to know anyone who is trans or be informed on trans issues, I felt that this was not a responsible way to frame these conversations.

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