Book Club Pages

Book Club –

‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Bernardine Evaristo

Girl, Woman, Other is about struggle, but also about love, joy and imagination. It's told from the point of view of 12 British women of color who range in age from 19 to 93 and represent a diversity of class, culture and sexual identity.

This was a Booker prize winner and came with great reviews, but……….the group itself went from finding it, ‘boring and gave up – no score,’ to, ‘beautifully written…totally worth the effort- score 9/10’ …….and everything else in between!

Perhaps the main message that came through was most of us thought it tried to be ‘overly topical’ and ‘too

edgy’ with topics of sperm donors, forced adoption, school dropouts, gays, transgender, bisexual, minorities, lesbianism, cross dressing, vegans, feminists, smoking, casual sex, drug use, drinking, single parenthood, mother in law/son in law sex, poverty, addiction, domestic violence, gang rape, gender free identity, and more. “Half way through I thought ‘there will be a transgender chapter soon’ and there predictably was.”

The unconventional punctuation, was a hard sell. What was supposed to be ‘free-flowing and uninhibited’ came over as annoying and stressful for a well drilled ‘old school’ group as far as punctuation is concerned!

It was difficult to keep up with so many different characters. They were entwined by family, roots and relationships but did get pulled together in the final chapter. This is not so much a novel as an account of individual lives, and therefore no real ‘storyline’ .

Some felt there was a politically correct ‘pressure’ to compliment the book while others wondered if there was a need to ‘check your privilege?’

The book scored a lowly 5/10 overall despite strong and positive comments by some members. Basically, this is a book you need to read yourself and make your own decision about.

Good luck to Laura and the group. It’s been great being part of Book Club over the past 12 months. We have enjoyed some interesting and varied reads while enjoying numerous cups of tea and lots of friendship.