A review by ellieb_reads
Real Life by Brandon Taylor

3.5

I think this is a really beautiful novel that, though I didn’t connect with it as much as I wanted, is a brilliant piece of work written for those that will. Taylor’s descriptive passages and storytelling were painful and vivid, and main character Wallace’s encounters with racism in the Midwest (and specifically at a fictionalized version of my alma mater) were hard to read - but a necessary reminder of what people of color and especially queer people of color experience and what white silence means in those moments. I struggled with the dialogue throughout the book, which was written very formally and awkwardly and I found myself thinking “nobody talks like this” more than once. But on the whole, this book is an impressive debut, and I’ll definitely check out Taylor’s future work.