20.5k reviews for:

Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin

4.36 AVERAGE

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was written so beautifully and the story is so tragic. I loved it, it’s gorgeous, and I think everyone should read it in high school. 
dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character

kayanoelle's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 53%

Maybe this is accurate for the time it was written but I couldn’t look past the hate against drag queens and women. I also didn’t care about any of the characters or the way this was written, why was there a one page long description of the people at the post office that have nothing to do with the story in a 150 page long book. Maybe I will try to read this again in the future because I really wanted to like this.
dark inspiring reflective sad
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

such a real and raw depiction of how humans think and love
challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No

"I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would've stayed at home." (On the phrase "finding yourself")

"Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love, but multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour, and in the oddest places, for the lack of it." (Made me ask, is this true? Think of women dying from love/at the hands of their partners)

"I've made all the discoveries that I can stand"

"I had thought of suicide when I was much younger, as possibly we all have, but then it would have been for revenge. It would have been my way of informing the world how awfully it had made me suffer "