In the month of December 2020, our ‘Get Lit’ book club sat down to discuss Girl, Woman, Other written by Bernadine Evaristo – joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. This was a fascinating read that is both contemporary in style yet set in the tradition of a fiction piece showcasing a variety of human perspectives.
The story is formed through a series of twelve chapters, each featuring a diverse collection of black women telling an individual story of their struggles, successes, relationships, and background. Evaristo skilfully connects each character through an assortment of relationships. While all characters are interconnected, some share more immediate links, and others are estranged with their connections emerging only later in the novel. Evaristo describes her writing as “fiction fusion” creating fluidity in tone and an almost lyrical looseness to each sentence, at times resembling a poetic performance of spoken word.
As a group, we collectively enjoyed the representation and range of different characters. Every person created by Evaristo has their own opinions and moral compass. Girl, Woman, Other perfectly reminds us to look around and appreciate the individuality of everyone we meet. We are incredibly lucky to live in a world with such a diverse spectrum of people! With full stops rarely appearing and sparse use of capitals, many of us were left craving the structure of a novel that we are familiar with. As each chapter represents a different character, this at times made the book feel like a collection of short stories rather than a cohesive novel.
Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆
If you are interested in joining the ‘Get Lit’ book club please email info@outlawnetwork.ie. We welcome all suggestions for future reads, both fiction and non-fiction, LGBT+ or not, Irish or international authors, or whatever piques your interest.
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