Giovanni’s Room opens Goodreads in a new tab

My thoughts

2025 rr// still five fucking stars. reread 2023, still the same if not more beautiful 5/5stars I don't think these 5 stars even begin to cover the amount of love I have for this beautifully written book. I mean this book deserves all the love it has and then some. Very rightly categorized as the Classic of Gay literature this is a story about a bisexual male in the 1950s Paris trying to turn against his sexual orientation, deny his attraction to men and decided to marry a woman and the story moves on from there. I was trembling. I thought, if I do not open the door at once and get out of here, I am lost. But I knew I could not open the door, I knew it was too late; soon it was too late to do anything but moan. He pulled me against him, putting himself into my arms as though he were giving me himself to carry, and slowly pulled me down with him to that bed. With everything in me screaming No! yet the sum of me sighed Yes. To say that this book is just another gay romance, would limit it's dynamic, it's reach so so much. This book is about love, despair, attachment, deception, viciousness, lust, loneliness, sorrow, tenderness, struggles of queers in society and ultimately tragedy. Some particular scenes in this book are so intense, so impactful the reader will not be able to get them out of their minds any time soon. The writing style is so good and I've heard it's a classic Baldwin thing to do, to present the story in the most lyrical way possible AND I AM HERE FOR IT. I love it and I want so much more of it!!! This book is gonna be one of my top 10 favorite books of this year and yes I'm saying this barely halfway through February, because of the writing style. I understood why Giovanni had wanted me and had brought me to his last retreat. I was to destroy this room and give to Giovanni a new and better life. This life could only be my own, which, in order to transform Giovanni’s, must first become part of Giovanni’s room This whole reading experience was like being infused with powerful sentences describing the abyss of patriarchy looming over individual lives. Baldwin treats complex relationships with some warmth and no easy or comfortable answers. His great control of place and atmosphere and melodramatic breathlessness pretty much successfully rushes you past all the dubious sexual politics and generalizations people make about gays in the book(which is actually a thoroughly accurate description of how people felt about the LGBTQIA+ community back then and even now to be honest) If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody. Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. In summation: Giovanni's Room will break your heart but will you will also fall in love with it. If you love beautiful writing and touching stories, read this. READ IT. JUST READ IT, OKAY?