A review by mitskacir
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

3.0

This is a difficult one for me to review. I have contradictory feelings about it. I found the absolute onslaught of characters and their incredibly detailed backstories (even just passing figures) wearisome and often lost track of the who's-who, but also felt like the level of detail built out the world. I often agreed with the feminist/liberal/etc.etc. diatribes that characters went on, but I also felt bored by the straightforwardness of their presentation and felt like I was being lectured or mansplained to. Some characters were particularly dislikable to me (mostly the artsy intellectuals), so I was thankful that the perspective changed frequently and I admire the author's ability to capture many different voices, but I also sometimes dreaded the change in narrator because there are SO MANY. Ultimately, I don't think I came away from this book with many new ideas and the brevity of each character's appearance made it hard to emotionally connect with them. However, the writing was excellent and I would recommend someone interested in the perspectives of (mostly) black (mostly) queer (mostly) women in Britain.