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lidiainthebooks's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
jessicastephenson's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
trin's review against another edition
4.0
Beautiful and heartbreaking—one of those classics that, upon reading for the first time, you can’t believe you haven’t read already. Baldwin combines many elements that I love in this subtle, restrained story: it’s all repressed gay ex-pats—sort of like a [a:Henry James|159|Henry James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1202237907p2/159.jpg] novel, if Henry James had actually been able to write about what he was actually writing about. This book probably deserves a more reverent write-up than that, but I have my own Jamesish moments, and true reverence makes me white-lightning uncomfortable.
Anyway, enough about me: you should read this.
Anyway, enough about me: you should read this.
smateer73's review against another edition
4.0
This book was an utterly poignant look at love and loss. Told through the perspective of a gay man in Paris who meets his lover Giovanni through the actions of the untold underbelly of Paris, then enters into a relationship with him that is doomed from the start, yet nonetheless you feel their love, every powerful emotion like nothing else. This is certainly a book I will be thinking about for a long time to come.
albaaca's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
zmoats's review against another edition
5.0
When you declare a book one of your favorites, and you return to it after some time, you just hope it can live up to that title you once gave it. You know you'll read things different than you did at one time. That difference in the perception as you change is one of the beauties of rereading books.
I am far enough removed from the first time I read Giovanni's Room that I didn't immediately recall what I felt making my way through the book the first time. James Baldwin is such a visceral writer though, he has this means of using language to crack you open. Almost as if you can feel him doing just the same on the other end of the pen.
I don't see much of a need to go on about how Giovanni's room in the novel becomes a metaphor for the way the world outside the room turns that very sanctuary to a prison. That has been written and analyzed by people far smarter than I. What always keeps me coming back to Baldwin though isn't just his ability to write so incisively about feeling. It's this ache. An ache that seems so omnipresent across his work. Sometimes that ache manifests itself in righteous anger, sometimes in despair, and sometimes in jubilance. But it never goes away. It seems contradictory to juxtapose that amorphous feeling against the specific emotionality of his writing, but that's exactly what it so enthralling. I'm not sure that dichotomy is laid bare more beautifully, plainly, or painfully than it is in Giovanni's Room.
I am far enough removed from the first time I read Giovanni's Room that I didn't immediately recall what I felt making my way through the book the first time. James Baldwin is such a visceral writer though, he has this means of using language to crack you open. Almost as if you can feel him doing just the same on the other end of the pen.
I don't see much of a need to go on about how Giovanni's room in the novel becomes a metaphor for the way the world outside the room turns that very sanctuary to a prison. That has been written and analyzed by people far smarter than I. What always keeps me coming back to Baldwin though isn't just his ability to write so incisively about feeling. It's this ache. An ache that seems so omnipresent across his work. Sometimes that ache manifests itself in righteous anger, sometimes in despair, and sometimes in jubilance. But it never goes away. It seems contradictory to juxtapose that amorphous feeling against the specific emotionality of his writing, but that's exactly what it so enthralling. I'm not sure that dichotomy is laid bare more beautifully, plainly, or painfully than it is in Giovanni's Room.
justinebt2114's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
yasidiaz's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I've been meaning to read this book for so long and I'm glad I finally did. Normally I avoid tragic queer stories, but reading this book felt necessary. This is a book I'll like to read again just to take even more time analyzing and digesting its themes.
dreaming_ace's review against another edition
5.0
This is the story of the pain and sorrow that happens when people are unable to be honest about who they love and their own feelings. More proof that we should never judge who we love and who love us even if that is not in alignment. We must be honest in our love.