Girl, Woman, Other

I read this book as a fictional rendition of 'intersectionality' theory, i.e. the idea that Black women's lives are conditioned by different power dynamics operating at once. However, this idea is beautifully interwoven in real-life events and conversations that make the book's characters alive.

I simply loved each one of them and very much enjoyed the plot as a whole. With a simple and direct, but also poetic and captivating language, the author takes you through unforeseen turns in the experience and feelings of these characters, and unexpected connections with one another. 

It explored struggles and the personal power found to overcome them.

The first time I tried to read this book, I had to put it down. I like grammar, and this book is having none of it. Then I tried again a few weeks later because everyone said I should. Once I got used to it, I came to appreciate this stream-of-consciousness story filled with artists, poets, writers, lesbians, love triangles, and adventures, and, at its heart, unlikely female friendships between Black women living mostly in London, with plot twists and turns deepening their interconnectedness in often astonishing ways. 

The writing is so vivid that it made me feel as if… show more.

Girl, Woman, Other was the book I recommended to all my friends and family this year in our Christmas newsletter (yes, we are one of those families).

It follows twelve characters across two generations in the United Kingdom. Massive cultural shifts occur, socio-economic status changes, and children grow up.

At first glance, this might not appear to be a book about cross-cultural interactions but the relationship between the mother and daughter at the centre of the story highlight the monumental shifts that can occur in a lifetime.

Winner of the Booker Prize, Girl, Woman, Other was probably the most ubiquitous book seen around London in 2019.

Evaristo will introduce you to a range of compelling female characters in this novel; she inhabits each one’s mind and voice so supremely that the women you meet on the page will stay with you for years. 

There’s so much to adore about Girl, Women, Other. I’m absolutely obsessed with the razor-sharp prose. I love the polylith-take of modern-day Britain. And I became heavily invested in the interconnected lives of the narrators: twelve very different and predominantly women of colour. Evaristo proves that it’s possible to write about complex, sensitive issues with both zing and wit, and love and care. Peckham and Elephant and Castle also get a mention too! Girl, Women, Other is such a special book. It’s one that I return to time and time again. A timeless, contemporary classic.

This book was surprising in both its humor and expansive narrative. Despite being somewhat experimental in its form, I loved this book as it told the stories of 12 British women of color who ranged in ages between 19 and 93 in London. Each life told separately, builds on the others. Spanning issues of class, gender identity, and family, the novel focuses on intersections of experience as generations of women are woven together. 

I've just started reading this book and already I love it.  Like my own, it shows what it's like to be female ... the insults, the exclusions, the limitations ... with a badass attitude, an acute awareness of and an unapologetic exposure of the sexism we have to deal with every frickin' day ... "perfect slave girl material one director told her when she walked into an audition for a play about Emancipation / whereupon she walked right back out again."