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jarshi 's review for:

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
4.25
challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Maybe I empathize with David because I’m also an emotionally constipated queer person with intimacy issues and have a weird, stilted relationship with my parent where I despair at the idea of one day becoming them.

When Giovanni was screaming shit like, “You physically can’t even make yourself love someone. It’s not that you won’t. It’s that you can’t!” I sat back and was like, “Oh, true!”