A review by finallyfinnian
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

5.0

I read this for a class I took on Baldwin's novels in times of crisis. (An excellent class, by the way.) The beauty of Baldwin's lyrical prose is that he can craft a novel in which none of the characters are actually likable and still make it compelling enough to keep reading. There are so many layers to this book, it's almost impossible to touch on them all. The love affair between David and Giovanni is just a surface layer. The book didn't leave me feeling satisfied - instead, it left me feeling as if I needed to reread it to try to dig out everything I missed in the first reading.