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A review by twellz
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
3.0
3.5 stars.
“Girl, Woman, Other" revolves around the opening night of a play called "The Last Amazon Of Dahomey" and 12 British women of color, ages 19 to 93: Amma, Yazz, Shirley, Dominique, Bummi, LaTisha, Carole, Winsome, Megan/Morgan, Penelope, Hattie, & Grace.
Written as 12 short stories & yet attempts to read like a novel because their lives are interconnected. The women cover a wide span of class, culture & sexual identity. When I first started reading this book, I couldn’t handle the lack of punctuation, capitalization & 12 different narrators! Well...it took forever, but I made it through Evaristo's repetitive rhythm of run-on sentences.
So 12 short interconnected stories? Yeah, it’s a bit overwhelming & I wanted it all to slow down. I was hoping for a more intricate engagement with characters & their specific lives. I enjoyed Dominique & Hattie’s stories the most. The rest were forgettable.
Bottom line: I felt like the author “ticked all the boxes” on feminism & called it a day. It starts slow but I’d still recommend it.
Inspiring Quote: “we should celebrate that many more women are reconfiguring feminism and that grassroots activism is spreading like wildfire and millions of women are waking up to the possibility of taking ownership of our world as fully-entitled human beings how can we argue with that?”
“Girl, Woman, Other" revolves around the opening night of a play called "The Last Amazon Of Dahomey" and 12 British women of color, ages 19 to 93: Amma, Yazz, Shirley, Dominique, Bummi, LaTisha, Carole, Winsome, Megan/Morgan, Penelope, Hattie, & Grace.
Written as 12 short stories & yet attempts to read like a novel because their lives are interconnected. The women cover a wide span of class, culture & sexual identity. When I first started reading this book, I couldn’t handle the lack of punctuation, capitalization & 12 different narrators! Well...it took forever, but I made it through Evaristo's repetitive rhythm of run-on sentences.
So 12 short interconnected stories? Yeah, it’s a bit overwhelming & I wanted it all to slow down. I was hoping for a more intricate engagement with characters & their specific lives. I enjoyed Dominique & Hattie’s stories the most. The rest were forgettable.
Bottom line: I felt like the author “ticked all the boxes” on feminism & called it a day. It starts slow but I’d still recommend it.
Inspiring Quote: “we should celebrate that many more women are reconfiguring feminism and that grassroots activism is spreading like wildfire and millions of women are waking up to the possibility of taking ownership of our world as fully-entitled human beings how can we argue with that?”