Reviews - Orlando: A Biography

5.6k reviews for:

Orlando: A Biography

Virginia Woolf

3.84 AVERAGE

krobber's review against another edition

4.25

funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

olwczak's review against another edition

3.75

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

riopse's review against another edition

4.25

challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

riffmonkey's review against another edition

2.0

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

God, did I hate this. The writing style I think is meant to be kind of funny, but to me it was just annoying, and it went on and on forever. There was a bit in between where Orlando thinks about how weird men and women act because of the societal rules, and how silly that is. That part I really liked, and I wish the rest of the book was more like that. But as it was, I don't really understand the point of the story. It was really just their life and made no real point. It just went on and on. I had a very hard time reading it.

rpaull_13's review against another edition

5.0

challenging hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

tarajoy90's review against another edition

4.0

challenging funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

isaac_badger's review against another edition

4.0

Didn’t mean to read this in one day but this shit was addictive

monarda's review against another edition

4.0

My sister gave me this book shortly after I came out to her. She's so cute.

I know it was all radical for talking about gender before anyone else was, but man, I had a hard time reading it or relating to it.

I'm pretty sure I stopped reading like 10 pages from the end. I just couldn't do it anymore.

Still, kudos for being ahead of her time!

philipeos's review against another edition

4.5

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

The intense whiplash of joyful gender fuckery and absolutely horrendously violent racism prevailed throughout the whole book.
While I'm grateful that Andrea Lawlor at least mentioned the problem somewhat, I found it almost uncomfortable how little Sandra Gilbert chose to talk about it. For a book that goes into such detail regarding both historic facts and (white) queer perfective, it was genuinely strange to see such a big part of this book be wilfully overlooked.
Anyway definitely worth a read and a classic for good reason, watch tf out for anti-blackness and anti-romani "sentiment" as Google calls it.

Content Warnings

tobin_elliott's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 27%

I'm not going to say much about this, beyond the fact that, Virginia Woolf is a brilliant author, but she's not for me.

All I got out of this was a thin, meandering dreamlike story broken frequently with excessive physical descriptions—right down to the difference between a person's upper and lower teeth.

I couldn't find it in myself to finish this, so no rating.

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