Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

68 reviews

artemisg's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

No matter how it seems now, I must confess: I loved him. I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again.

About ten pages into this book, I knew it would absolutely ruin me, and ruin me it did.

I stared out into the street. I was beginning to think of Giovanni dying—where Giovanni had been there would be nothing, nothing forever.

This is a truly devastating story about the struggle of queer men navigating their identities and hopes and dreams. It’s also a story about privileged young people being idiots with their hearts and the hearts of those they care about, a story about love and hatred - and the thin line between the two. It’s heartbreaking and gut-punching.

With this fearful intimation there opened in me a hatred for Giovanni which was as powerful as my love and which was nourished by the same roots.

Baldwin understands like no one else. He somehow managed to capture every experience known to man in this book.

“For a woman,” she said, “I think a man is always a stranger.”

I don’t have it in me for a coherent review, so instead, here are some lines that knocked the air out of my lungs:

“Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden,” Jacques said. And then: “I wonder why.”

“Well,” I said, “Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn’t what you feel in New York—” He was smiling. I stopped.
“What do you feel in New York?” he asked.
“Perhaps you feel,” I told him, “all the time to come.”

We had, in effect, been playing a deadly game and he was the winner. He was the winner in spite of the fact that I had cheated to win.

“Then I would have no job and I have only just found out that I want to live.”

“Somebody,” said Jacques, “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.” And then: “Here comes your baby. Sois sage. Sois chic. ”

He made me think of home—perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

My executioners are here with me, walking up and down with me, washing things and packing and drinking from my bottle. They are everywhere I turn. Walls, windows, mirrors, water, the night outside—they are everywhere.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia

Minor: Sexism and Sexual content

lsbroadwater's review against another edition

emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Sexual content, Homophobia, Sexual harassment, and Death

theremightbecupcakes's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I have tears in my eyes. That’s all I can say right now.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Alcohol, Death, Murder, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Grief, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Misogyny

Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Transphobia, and Violence

zara89's review against another edition

emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content, Outing, Violence, Medical trauma, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Homophobia, Car accident, and Child death

Minor: Death and Death of parent

thecatconstellation's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Alcohol, and Homophobia

Moderate: Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Murder, Sexism, and Death

Minor: Pregnancy, Infidelity, Sexual content, Miscarriage, Xenophobia, Sexual harassment, Transphobia, and Sexual assault

jaiari12's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Infidelity, Sexism, Alcohol, Homophobia, Murder, and Sexual content

miller8d's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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

2.5

I like James Baldwin’s poetic language and poignant emotional description but

I found the ending of this book quite disappointing and I really wish there had been more plot to this book. It felt like nothing really happened in comparison to how much of the book was spent explaining— it was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, which isn’t bad, it’s just not my preference. James Baldwin is incredible and brilliant and this book is historically significant, but I did not enjoy it very much.

Note: I pictured James Baldwin as Giovanni, and Hugh Dennis as Jacques.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Suicide, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Classism, Outing, Sexual harassment, Violence, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Sexual content, Domestic abuse, Grief, and Sexism

pyronautphea's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Homophobia, and Death

Moderate: Fatphobia, Sexual content, Murder, Biphobia, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Miscarriage

purplehulk713's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

This book only truly interested me at the very end when Giovanni is calling David out on all his bullshit. It felt so much like what people consider “literature” otherwise—clever and well-thought-out, but too dense and tedious to read to be of any real enjoyment to anyone who’s not an English scholar (and I’m speaking as university writing minor). But as a landmark in queer fiction, it does deserve praise. I just wish that it  didn’t make me want so much for it to be over while reading more than it made me enjoy its poetic prose and insights (David is so frustrating, and Jacques and Guillaume are disgusting). But facing the sincerity embodied in Giovanni’s room was a truly tantalizing subject.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Grief, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

itsgeesus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I really enjoy Baldwin, I think his writing is fantastic and hooks you in no matter the story. Even though this was relatively a quick read, it was addictive, with the exploration of queerness feeling so real and gritty. The internalised homophobia David felt throughout is something that was especially poignant, given that it would have been something many American men would've felt pre-Stonewall. Some readers may even experience it today. Sure, it was often uncomfortable to read, but it felt genuine, and David's struggle to accept his love for Giovanni is something to be commended. The pressure of 'fitting in' with a heteronormative society was a theme I really enjoyed throughout because no matter what decade this would have been read in, it is still somehow relevant. 

I would say, however, that the way Hella was written in was fairly misogynistic, whether by accident or not. At times, it felt as if her absence was used by David to justify his affair with Giovanni, rather than David wanting to explore because he genuinely felt attracted to Giovanni. Even with Hella around, the way David spoke about her and other women felt weird, like even for 1956 society. The vibe I got was "men are superior, women are just mistresses". That was the only thing to have pulled me away from such a story.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual content, Transphobia, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Death of parent, and Murder