Reviews

What belongs to you by Garth Greenwell

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travisclau's review against another edition

5.0

A book I loved for its sincerity, its honesty about some of the most minute aspects of queer identity that isn't spectacularized but made simply a part of every day living. I thought a lot about how the opening of this novel echoed but deviated significantly from Golding's Abomination, which also is about cruising culture and queer space. In so many ways, Greenwell's novel is about similar traumas that have led to particular queer ways of being, but it does not dwell on that kind of hypersexuality. Greenwell meditates on loss and ambivalence that is bound up with unexpected forms of intimacy that are possible because of displacement, circumstance, and barriers to communication. It is sparse in that it describes accurately rather than effusively. This was also one of the first novels I had read in a long time, aside from Yanagihara's A Little Life, that grappled with the queer experience of illness and disability. This is timely -- a reminder in a generation that knows so little about the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s and its enduring effects on queer identity and queer relations.

amalauna's review against another edition

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1.0

I couldn't get into this world. The writing was so cold and antiseptic.

ncteixeira's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

4.0

Well, this was quite a surprise.

When I started reading this book I did think that the writing was pretentious and some times forced, but as I progressed through the book I felt that the story was so human and hard to believe it was a work of fiction.

The traumas of childhood and upbringing, the solitude, the lust, the constant searching for happiness and fulfillment, the language barrier and relationships were all intrinsically linked with terrific success.

So many times I felt connected to his world that I was quite often transported to my own childhood and young adult life.

The development of the story is very slow and the writing is a bit repetitive with lots of punctuation and long sentences, but yes, there is something extraordinary here.

shadowsmoon's review

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5.0

Tender, honest and superbly written

truittclark's review against another edition

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4.0

So real it seems autobiographical. The language barrier between the narrator and Mitko adds tension. I found the detours away from the Mitko storyline, such as the section with the narrator and his mother on the train, to be somewhat tedious and less interesting to read. But Greenwell is an impressive writer and it’s surprising that this is his debut.

myshkacat's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-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

1.5

I loved the ending… that is, I loved that it ended. The only word I can think of to describe this book is “excruciating”. It was a root canal disguised as a novel. It’s been a long time since I’ve almost been brought to tears by the end of a book, not by emotional connection to the story/characters, but by sheer relief that it’s finally over.

It makes a lot of sense that this was originally supposed to be a novella, since it definitely reads as a (boring) story chopped up into a few parts that were then spread out and filled in the gaps with seemingly endless drudgery of long winded, half-baked thoughts and memories that reached no conclusion and held no relevance to the stimulus that had evoked them.

If you’re interested in following an insufferably introspective yet somehow still shallow and insubstantial main character as he describes to you— in a death-by-a-thousand-run-on-sentences style of narration— the fly on the window of the bus, then look no further.

I recommend What Belongs to You to anyone who wants a book that will force them to ask themselves difficult questions, for example “how is it possible that a book under 200 pages feels like it’s taking me a decade to get through?” and “was the adderall I took this morning a placebo?”

I did not enjoy this book.