NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE “A must-read about modern Britain and womanhood . . . An impressive, fierce novel about the lives of black British families, their struggles, pains, laughter, longings and loves . . . Her style is passionate, razor-sharp, brimming with energy and humor. There is never a single moment of dullness in this book and the pace does not allow you to turn away from its momentum.” —Booker Prize Judges Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and the first black woman to receive this highest literary honor in the English language. Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain’s colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean. The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in London’s funding-deprived schools; Carole, one of Shirley’s former students, is a successful investment banker; Carole’s mother Bummi works as a cleaner and worries about her daughter’s lack of rootedness despite her obvious achievements. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class. Sparklingly witty and filled with emotion, centering voices we often see othered, and written in an innovative fast-moving form that borrows technique from poetry, Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that shows a side of Britain we rarely see, one that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart.

While there were lovers and haters of Girl, Woman, Other at this week's meeting, the dominant reaction was a shrug. Most of us thought the book was ok, interesting in points but flawed. On the positive side, Evaristo had an interesting project in looking at the different identities that women of color could have based on generation, context, and lived experienced. The first three characters (Ama, Yazz, Dominique) in particular formed an interesting diversity of viewpoints that we wished we saw more of, and the depiction of an incompetent teacher in Shirley was a welcome view of a woman failing in a caretaking role. In the abstract, all of us agreed that the idea was strong. Where the middling ratings came from was the execution. Many of us felt that there were too many characters and as a result, many of the stories felt more like clichés and caricatures than actual people. This was particularly manifest in the discussion of LGBTQ issues -- many of us felt that the depictions of transphobia and non-heteronormative relationships were simplistic and not interesting. It lead us to ask if there was any subtlety in the book at all, and an argument by the book's supporters that perhaps because the book was aimed at a British audience, the conversations about identity had a different level of understanding and sophistication. Also, a couple of us depised the style of the work. There were condemnations of the sentiment, comparing tone to that of LiveJournal diaries, and a lot of challenges to the choice of line breaks and lack of punctuation, which a couple of us felt made the text melodramatic and clunky. A few of us argued that the structure was poetic and the bluntness of the emotion was the part of the quality of the novel. Essentially, we agreed to disagree on the writing. But the key takeaway was the same -- for the most of us, while the ideas of the book were interesting and strong, the execution did not go far enough to deliver on that promise. We think that this one is going to come down to style for readers. If Evaristo's style connects to you and you find the somewhat blunt depictions of these women compelling, you will find Girl, Woman, Other a rewarding read. Otherwise, you'll be disappointed waiting for the good version of this novel that Evaristo does not deliver.