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

challenging reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I am extremely conflicted on how to review this book. On the one hand, I can see logically that this was a good book.  The writing is interesting and it deals with a lot of heavy but important topics.  On the other hand, I really did not enjoy myself while reading it at all.

Part of this was because there was no plot to this story. It was more of a collection of character vignettes. If that's your thing, you should definitely read it.  I felt that this style really just made it feel like hundreds of pages of exposition.  I kept waiting for something to happen and it never did.

Another problem I had (I'm also conflicted saying this) was that I felt when this book showed some of the negative internal thoughts of characters (things that were racist, transphobic, bullying, hateful, etc) it never really expounded about what was wrong. And they weren't things that were very obviously wrong, they were more subtle. This left me with a feeling like some of these thoughts were the authors instead of just the characters.  Again, logically, I don't think the author feels that way, but it just left a bad feeling for me.

Overall, I think this is worth checking out, but it just wasn't my thing.
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