Few books leave me wondering if I would recommend it. But such is the case with Girl, Woman, Other (Black Cat, 2019) by Bernardine Evaristo.
I liked this book. The storytelling was great. I was captured by each person. So, yes, it was good.
The book delves into the lives of multiple people, with the main characters Black British women. At times their ties to Africa were relevant. Diversity is a central concept in the book—from sexuality to age to work to socio-economic status.
My problem was with there being 12 distinct characters it was hard to understand who was connected to whom. It’s almost like I needed an org chart to fall back on to remember who was who.
It didn’t help that out of the gate it was disarming to have it written without traditional punctuation. Once I got over that minor hurdle, all was good. The writing/layout style actually added to the book’s uniqueness.
One thing I realized while reading this book is that I don’t read enough from non-U.S. authors or books based outside the U.S. that aren’t travel oriented.
Your comment about reading books by authors outside of the United States reminds me of those I have read in this category — both fiction and non. These authors and their books, even if from another English speaking country, always have at least a slightly different perspective, sometimes quite different. For me, this adds an additional layer to the book.