A review by seawarrior
Real Life by Brandon Taylor

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

Real Life is a heavy, honest coming of age story that focuses on graduate student Wallace, as he realizes the depths of his discontent over the course of a weekend. Wallace is the only Black graduate student in his program, an alienating experience which is made worse by acts of sabotage, statements of thinly veiled racism, and silence from his white peers. Taylor pulls no punches while describing how Wallace feels, and unravels why he is compelled to either placate or push away those he calls his friends as the story goes on. This book contains effective but visceral descriptions of trauma and how it pecks its way into people and slumbers within them, poisoning them quietly for a spell before squawking loudly for attention. If you are triggered by descriptions of sexual assault, especially against minors, this is not a book I would ever recommend to you. Yet I never felt like Taylor exploited Wallace's history of surviving assault to elicit shock or pity from the reader. Instead we are led to understand, similarly to Wallace, that his history cannot be escaped, and that his flee to academia has piled on new violations hidden under politeness and guilty apologies while exacerbating his poor self-esteem. Taylor makes it impossible not to empathize with Wallace, and I desperately wished for him to find safety and happiness somewhere in his world. The ending of the book was disappointing to me because Wallace's life did not improve, but I don't regret having read it. Taylor's prose is striking and glittering with insight, so I would still highly recommend this book to those who can stomach the subject matter.
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