Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Breakfast at Tiffany's

Full disclosure - I have never watched the movie adaptation with Audrey Hepburn. However, I did go into reading Breakfast at Tiffany's with pre-conceived notions. I expected this to be a lighthearted novella. It was not. For starters, Truman Capote sure does love him some racial slurs. And Holly Golightly was just a sad train wreck of a character. But also, boy was this campy and very, very gay.

Content Warnings

henrygravesprince's review against another edition

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lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

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

4.0

Truman was an incredible writer, and I think overall the prose here is as masterful as his tends to be, but it’s worth noting that this book has a lot of depictions of people having deeply entrenched biases and using very derogatory language. Personally, I find the “historical accuracy”/“it’s of its times” argument complicated at best when it is employed: to be clear, I’m willing to approach a work where it’s at, but if I think the bigoted sentiments being depicted are being endorsed within the narrative or by the author, the time and place in which it was written doesn’t make a difference in my judgment of something. Ultimately, I don’t think Capote was agreeing with the characters in this work (or in much any of his work, really), so much as showing us a lense into the world he saw around him. That being said, I still wouldn’t be able to in good conscience recommend this to people as an “entertainment” read, especially without huge caveats for period-typical language and depictions of various kinds of bigotry.

Something I find interesting about Holly Golightly in the book, as opposed to the film, is that she is far more overtly flawed and ergo more human—I know a lot of people say she’s the manic pixie dream girl prototype, but to me, the film embodies that much more than the book. The book contains fragments of that, for sure, but it feels more like a story about people perceiving someone in that way than a story pushing the concept; Holly’s presence is ephemeral, fleeting, but also incredibly sharp and sometimes callous, and in her, I can’t help but see Nina Capote (or Lillie Mae Faulk), Truman’s mother. I think that in itself is a big part of why she’s seen in such a glittering way despite being a relatively bad friend and person, not to mention the animosity broiling beneath the narrator’s surface towards her just as much as his affection for her. Glamorous, hell-bent on becoming part of a particular upper echelon of society, and ultimately, as cruel beneath the surface as they are enthralling: these words describe Holly, Truman, and Nina each in their own right.

At its core, this is a story of home, of belonging, of identity, and of the search for that: but central to that, too, is both hopefulness and uncertainty. The characters are play, obviously save for the cat, are generally not very likeable. The facts about Holly Golightly are on unstable ground, and how accurate the narrator’s interpretation of her is, as well; as for the narrator, his identity in the story is built up entirely around his connection to Holly, and despite us knowing his life extends beyond her, he does not share it with us. Their characters are reflected in the cat, who ultimately may have found a name of his own, but as he doesn’t belong to Holly or to the narrator in the end, we never learn it; he is ultimately both a symbol of freedom and of belonging, and in the end, it seems he may be the only one who has settled into a home. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a dreamlike snapshot of New York café society from its fringes, transient and grimy, longing for home and leaving us wondering if the narrator or the central heroine ever found it.

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biancala's review against another edition

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lighthearted reflective fast-paced

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

2.0

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alipp's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

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

2.75

I thought I’d enjoy this more than I did, I hadn’t seen the movie for 10-15 years but it was a bit different than I remembered. Didn’t recall all of the slurs used. Holly Is an interesting character and I wonder how it would’ve been different if written by a woman. Felt like I had to finish it bc it’s a classic & the second half went down easier than the first! Took awhile to get into it for such a short book though.

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illiterateape's review against another edition

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fast-paced

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

3.0

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b_arose's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.0

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a book littered with sadness, flawed and unlikeable characters told from the perspective of an anonymous narrator, who falls for the charms of Holly Golightly, a wayward twenty year old who masks her pain and sufferings in life with men and alcohol.

The plot revolves around the disjointed tales of his encounters with Holly and the men in her life in New York. Capote's writing has fast pacing, flair and naunce to paint vidid pictures of the scenes he depicts of the characters. What happens narratively in the story is not hugely memorable and everyone is pretty annoying in some way but the way they are written draws you in to want to hear more.

House of Flowers is a sad story of a young child sex worker who at 17 falls for a man in the mountains who treats her poorly but is too afraid to leave him as she thinks she's in love. It's not the easiest format to read as none of the dialogue has any speech marks and flows as one solid passage. This was my least favourite story of the book as it didn't offer any hope to toxic situations or anecdotes that felt anything outside of cruel.

A Diamond Guitar is the best of the three shorter stories, it's patched with light and dark, sadness and happiness in a way that feels realistic to the human memory and views of the world. An unlikely friendship that is used for different reasons with warming moments. If you liked The Shawshank Redemption film, this story has a similar vibe.

A Christmas Memory is an odd tale of a seven year old (I still cannot tell if they are meant to be a boy or girl) and 60 year old woman who are distant cousins and best friends in a house of family members who outcast them. The story is very well written with incredible vocabulary and metaphors that doesn't relate to the way a seven year old would speak at all, so the fact it's from a child's perspective makes it odd and 'weird' to read very eloquent adult language. It's a simple story of their journey to making fruit cakes at Christmas with very little money and their dreams and pasttimes. There's an abrupt sad ending which feels slightly disjointed and overall sours the playful innocence we have previously become accustomed to.

All the writings in this book are fast paced with slow language to describe the mundane in a romantic essay from a slow living perspective.

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