novel1956
Giovanni's Room
James Baldwin
Brutally short and impossible to forget. Baldwin writes about love and cowardice in a way that makes cowardice feel like the original sin — not the failure of loving, but the failure of admitting you do. The prose is clean and absolutely unforgiving. A book about self-deception that doesn't let you be self-deceived while reading it.
★★★★½4.8
devastatingliterarypainful
stayed with me