When 'Girl, Woman, Other' won the Booker Prize last year, it was a joint winner with 'The Testaments', Margaret Atwood's follow-up to 'The Handmaid' s Tale'. All of the press seemed to centre on Atwood's novel, she being the more famous author, and 'the Handmaid's Tale' having been recently televised. As a fan of Atwood, I had pre-ordered 'The Testaments', skim-read articles about the Booker winners for comments about it, and almost ignored media-coverage of 'Girl, Woman, Other'. My mistake.

This is an amazing book: it takes on the narratives of a series of 'ordinary' characters, most of whom are black and female, and makes the reader really care about their lives. To create a realistic protagonist is impressive, but to do this over and over again within the same novel was sonething else.

This book is political, but rather than employing a didactic tone, it shows you people's lives, and allows the reader to make their own conclusions. My hope would be that many white men would read this novel, although I regretfully feel that this will not be the case.

Deserved joint winner of the Booker prize, not my usual genre, but a good read nonetheless. Recommended.

we the women, whose praises go unsung, whose voices go unheard

What is it to be female? This book follows 12 different characters, female at birth, and explores their lives at different stages.

At first I wasn't sure about this book. As a teacher it made me want to cry a little bit that there was a lack of punctuation but once I got used to Evaristo's style of writing I managed to overlook this and enjoy the book. Once I got past the first couple of chapters, I struggled to put the book down. I loved the different backgrounds of the characters but how their stories all interlinked and how the atiitudes of the characters develop and change over time.

I would recommend everyone reads this book. It explores not only relationships with others but also our relationships with ourselves. It ultimatley comes back to the different roles we see women take up, especially black women in the modern day.

I have a feeling this book will stay relevant for many years to come.

Loved a lot about this book- the writing style, the characters, the relationships, and the way current issues are explored throughout the narrative

Brilliantly clever, nuanced and insightful. I devoured this one... and then wanted to start again at the beginning!

I loved this book a worthy prize winner. Very moving. A great insight into modern society. I highly recommend this book to other readers.

This novel is truly a work of art.

Let's talk about Bernardine Evaristo's character development. As perspective shifts between chapters, we come to understand more about their story past, present, and future, and one of my favourite things is how in just a few paragraph, such a vivid picture of each is created. We know their experiences in life and in Britain, and how they came to arrive at the point at which we meet each of them, both physically, and mentally. Winsome, Shirley, Carole, Bummi - were some of my favourites - but each of the novel's characters is pushing themselves forward in life in some way. Pushing boundaries, silently healing themselves from various traumatic experiences over which others might have completely fallen to pieces, overcoming prejudices, getting older, living.

The stylistic choices really add to this rich tapestry because the syntax and lack of punctuation add a poetic phrasing to the prose, playing with emotion, adding dramatic rise and fall in some places, in line with startling revelations, and adding a sense of urgency in others.

Moreover, the thread which intertwines their stories is really delicately managed, mothers, daughters, great-grand daughters, friends. They are brought together in such a way that you feel like you're reading about people you know, the generations, their history, their life experience and their choices.

Powerful, moving and beautifully written.

I don't know how to describe this other than it's utterly perfect! There are no other words needed.
Highly highly recommended as perhaps could be garnered from the accolades it has won.
Thank you so much for the ARC.

A truly intoxicating and infectious book that pulled me back to its pages more often than I'd anticipated. The characters are richly and beautifully drawn and, though not all necessarily likable, thoroughly compelling in their completeness. This is a novel highly deserving of its many accolades.

I tried reading this 3 times but for some reason just can get into it. I don't know what it is about the book or the writing but it just doesn't pull me in I'm afraid. I will try again in future and update this review.

I met Bernardine Evaristo as a writing event about 5 years ago, and always remembered her because of how warm and generous she seemed and how the advice she gave the audience was actually practical, when most writing advice is incredibly vague. Girl, Woman, Other has, even though it deals with upsetting subjects including domestic abuse, rape and sexual assault, a similar warmth and generosity to its characters, which I loved. While we only have a short time with each character Evaristo shows us a slice of their lives that completely exposes who they are as people, and I don't think i've ever seen it done so well before. I did wonder whether the book would wrap everything up at the end, but even though the ending was unexpected, it was perfect.

Girl, Woman, Other is a story of lives interconnected and entwined over the ages and through decades. It encapsulates 12 very different women's loves, longings, losses, aspirations, families & secrets. Some parts were heartbreaking, some were uplifting, some were educational but when they're all put together by Evaristo's lyrical prose it makes for an incredible story of racism, sexuality, abuse, lies, warmth, love, connections and the every day relationships that make up these women's lives.
I would have liked some of the characters stories to be expanded and there were a few of them that I didn't connect with but apart from that I loved the writing style even though I thought I'd struggle with the format initially. It flowed beautifully. I can't wait to read more of Bernadine Evaristo's work.

This incredible book feels more poignant than ever in the current climate. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to expand their world view and as part of their commitment to addressing their racial biases and taking action to address these in society.

The flowing, easy to read nature of this novel belies a clever structure that underpins it and gives the reader a little thrill when the stories overlap and connect. I enjoyed it very much and found each new character’s story as compelling as the next. Bernardine Evaristo’s twelve, predominantly black, characters have different perspectives and life experiences which allows for a portrait of Britain to emerge in all its diversity. The lack of punctuation didn’t entirely work for me, but that could well have been because I was reading it on an e reader, so it probably messed with the line breaks. Perceptive, compassionate and intelligent.

3.5 stars from me. I'm not going to give it a rave review. To put it briefly, there were some parts I enjoyed, some parts I found intriguing,some parts I couldn't care less for and some parts that I found confusing (who am I reading about again?/ who was she? -i'm sure I read her name before). The depth and detail were immense.However, this depth and detail quite often went off in a tangent, making the narrative ramble on and on.
My thanks to Net Galley for providing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

A fantastic book, worthy of the Man Booker Prize entirely - it should of won on it's own!

I read this as part of a Book Club read and it's perfect for it. The dimensions and the characterisations are perfection.

I have been a little apprehensive to start this book - how could it possibly live up to the huge acclaim it has received?! I finally took the plunge, and am of course now wondering what took me so long! I loved the network of black British women we meet, all from different backgrounds, following different paths. At the same time there are similarities between some of the stories, and the women interconnecting with each others' lives - sometimes family, friends, colleagues and sometimes crossing paths in more fleeting ways, like at events, online or through each other.

The style is unique, with the sentences rolling one after the other without full punctuation. It is so interesting narratively as well; each section is a captivating glimpse into that particular woman's life, holding together as it's own short story, but also weave together into the larger patchwork of the novel. I can certainly see why so many people are referring to this as a masterpiece.

When I was young and on long car journeys, I used to look at the people in each car going past us and wonder about their lives. It blew my tiny mind that each car contained a person who was as fully developed and had an equally important life to me, with their own families and friends and jobs and thoughts and daydreams.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Girl, Woman, Other follows twelve characters across contemporary Britain in what has been described by Roxane Gay as a "sweeping history of the black British experience." Although each character only gets a chapter to themselves, they are so richly developed that you learn all of the things I so want to know about them and how their history and family and dreams have all come together to make them who they are. And then the next chapter concentrates on someone who is mentioned in passing in the previous chapter, and you learn about THEM in all of the richness that Evaristo writes with. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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I have so much to say about this book. I haven’t even mentioned the form, which intimidated me at first but became easier and easier to read until I didn’t even notice how few full stops there are — the flowing verse allows for such incredible prose that I had to read some sentences out loud. This is the first book I have ever read that I would like to listen to because the language is so beautiful. Luckily for me BBC4 have readings of the chapters which I can’t wait to hear!⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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In short: believe what you hear. An astonishing book

This was an incredible read. It is feminist narrative with an unconventional time structure and beautiful writing. The book presents a wide variety of black women of different ages coming from different backgrounds. It is beautifully written, full of poetic prose. I think it is moving, engrossing and very necessary in this current society.

Gorgeously written, huge in its scope and absolutely deserving of winning the Man Booker Prize. I've recommended this to everyone I know.