Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Giovanni's Room

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

60 reviews

keegan_leech's review

5.0

dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

An instant all-time favourite. Baldwin is able to provoke and sustain an astonishing depth of emotion. There is a kind of sorrowful dread that hangs over Giovanni's Room which one might expect to very quickly exhaust a reader, and yet the novel is impossible to put down. It draws you through itself. Baldwin's characters are complex, fascinating, beautifully realised. Few novels are its equal in terms of the pure mastery of their writing.

It always feels a little silly finally reading a book that is widely-praised as a towering literary classic and then saying, "You know everyone, I think this James Baldwin guy was a good writer." It's not an unusual or unexpected opinion, and I don't think I have anything to say that literal thousands of people haven't said before me. But please, if adding my voice to the chorus of those praising him can somehow convince you, go read James Baldwin!

Content Warnings

amandaboz's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

madelinetes's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

digiwitcher's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A must-read

Content Warnings

jairereads's review against another edition

5.0

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Being a man is a prison where you are your own warden.

P.S. Spiritually, this is everything I wanted (but didn’t get) from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Less.

P.P.S. I love how Black authors know how to White characters inside and out, but not so much the other way around…

Content Warnings

jana_of_the_wind's review against another edition

2.0

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

I so wanted to love this book but I didn’t.
I can appreciate what the novel did in its historic context while saying that I didn’t enjoy reading it.
I rarely read a book where I cannot stand the protagonists at all. This is one of these books. They’re so unlikable, egoistic, misogynistic, trans- and homophobic for no reason at all.
I don’t think I can find any redeeming qualities for these characters and their relationship was extremely toxic as well.
Unfortunately because I didn’t like the characters I also didn’t care about the ending.

(Two stars cause I didn’t feel the need to dnf it and can appreciate it’s relevance.)

Content Warnings