A beautiful exploration of the dark side of British nationalism that validated my own experiences and for that alone, I loved this book.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but the blurb held an interesting premise.
Unfortunately, I found it very hard to get into.
The way the book was written with no regard to traditional structure or punctuation was different, but also confusing.
Nevertheless, each short section detailing a different strong woman's life was intriguing. I had to read to the end to find out how it all tied together.
But... I just wish there were fewer characters, so I could get to know some in more detail, rather than so many, women, who seemed to blend into each other after a while.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books for an ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a well crafted story which was a worthy winner of the Booker Prize. The interconnecting stories did mean you had to concentrate but all the stories were tied up beautifully at the end. A great read!

Bernardine Evaristo's "Girl, Woman, Other" is an extremely worthy award-winner. It blew my socks off and opened my eyes in so many ways. It's an outstanding piece of work. Megan/Morgan, Hattie and Grace's stories touched me deeply and will stay with me forever.

A truly sweeping novel in terms of scope, yet also feels very intimate and personal. Telling the stories of 12 women, this novel talks of their lives and also is a history of the experiences of British black women. Vibrant and engrossing, the original use (or lack of use) of full stops keeps it all moving along, yet also left me a little breathless! Highly recommended.

An unconventional novel presented as several detailed character profiles. This book is so deserving of all the praise it has received and a well-deserved Booker win.
My one criticism is that at times due to the length of the book and the amount of characters it is easy to forget who is who when the stories interconnect, however the ending does tie it together nicely. Evaristo presents a diverse range of characters however at times the voices can blend together as they can be quite similar in tone and, due to the scope of the book, the chapters can be a little over detailed.
My main praise for the book as to be how it perfectly interweaves the issues which it tackles. So many important stories are told in the novel which deals with intersectional feminism throughout several decades and Evaristo’s story telling brings them to life.
I love Evaristo’s writing and her ability to tell a story. I’m looking forward to reading more of her.
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin for the copy.

I chose this book to read because it was joint winner of the Booker prize. I might not have read it otherwise but I'm glad I did.

I liked that each main character had a chapter and enjoyed the fascinating and well written storyline for each of them but towards the end found them a little too similar. I found the writing difficult at times and did occasionally struggle to keep going but I did finish and really enjoyed the ending and how some of the characters link together.

I loved this book! It was beautifully crafted; the lives of the individual women wove in and out of each others both contemporaneously and through their histories. Brilliant!

It took me some time to come to terms with this book but it deserves all the praise it's had (and little of the criticism). It's an ambitious overview of girls, women, others across UK society and history. It's lack of punctuation keeps the narrative moving at pace and keeps you engaged. I could take issue with the fact that the narrative voice and the characters' voices begin to blur after a while (and the occasional lapses into preachiness) but that would be to take away from the achievement of the novel. And while I tried to resist the emotional heft of the ending, it got me. Read it.

I was SO excited to get to this before all of the Booker drama, and then when I finally did I was so glad. It totally exceeded expectations and I can't wait to tell everyone I know about this.

This book was not for me but thank you for letting me read it . I will not be posting to Amazon as I feel that many other people would enjoy it and I just made a bad choice

“Girl, Woman, Other” is a powerful novel that follows the lives and hardships of several women, who’s life is intertwined in multiple different ways. This book reads like a familial history, which I found similar to what I’ve encountered in Allende’s “House of Spirits”, even though all these women aren’t all related by blood. What binds them together is their participation (or their children’s/grandchildren’s/great grandchildren’s) in the premier of the play written and directed by one of the protagonists. This strong creative source that celebrates the Amazons of Dahomey, celebrates the strength of black women, which most of the characters (even unknowingly) are. From there the author (sometimes chaotically but always beautifully), tells the stories of incredible and ordinary women. I absolutely adored it and can’t believe I’ve finished it, as I’d love to be able to read it all over again.

An unconventional novel, as it shows the stories of so many different women. Yet it also shows women who are least likely to be represented. A remarkable book and definitely a must-read!

Girl, Woman, Other

A fascinating book, made up of the lives of women in recent, and not quite so recent times.
I found the writing style difficult at first, often having to reread paragraphs (if there were any!) to get the gist of the meaning, but got more into it by the later chapters.
I found the fact that there were so many women made it rather difficult to follow - I’d sometimes forgotten about previous characters, then thought ‘ah yes! It’s her!’ after a while.
And I absolutely loved the ending!

I wanted to like this more than I did. I'm beginning to wonder if there's something about award winning books and me as I always end up slightly disappointed.

This is well written and raises many important points and experiences, however it didn't love it as a novel. Some stories were fascinating but others I felt like were more like newspaper columns rather than actual conversations. Perhaps half the number of characters and more interwoven would've been more my cup of tea.

It is really hard for me to review this novel. Firstly, I expected to enjoy this a lot more than I did, and I do think a big reason for this was that I just couldn't get into the writing style; it turns out I need proper punctuation and paragraphs to enjoy a book (and I did download the published version to ensure that this wasn't just how my review copy had been sent). This novel is ambitious, and given it's a Booker prize winner, clearly accomplished. The interwoven stories of the characters - all so very broad, diverse but distinct - crucial to be heard. And I did enjoy their stories, taking a lot from them, especially some characters more than others. This is contemporary literature at its finest, I can't deny that, but it just didn't grip me as much as I'd wanted. Along with the writing style, I truly think there were just too many characters included for me to be able to even remember them all clearly, let alone feel connected to them. The ending was brilliant, if somewhat predictable, but again, as I didn't have those connections to all the characters, fell a bit flat for me. An average 3 star rating from me, as although I couldn't become as invested as I wanted to be in these characters lives, I could still recognise how ingenious of a portrayal the novel was, and how this is a compassionate and unique love letter to girls, women or others everywhere.

*I received an advance review copy of Girl, Woman, Other from the publisher through NetGalley.

There aren't enough words for how utterly exceptional this book is. Praised as a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood, Girl, Woman, Other, is this and so much more. It's a masterpiece of our time and of our future.

Seamlessly uniting notions of identity, race, struggle, social history, love, loss, womanhood and home, Bernardine Evaristo composes a beautiful chorus of 12 unforgettably, distinct characters. Each rich and vivid with such a rare honesty that makes each sentence linger long after you turn the page.

I'm in awe of Bernardine Evaristo's writing and of her extraordinary talent that has enhanced literature to a new level.

If there's one book you read this year or ever, let it be this one.

I enjoyed the first three sections of Girl, Woman, Other, but found it somewhat repetitive, tick-boxy and disconnected after that point and persisted more out of contrariness than true interest.

I loved this. I'd been hearing about it everywhere and I was a little worried it would be over-hyped but actually, I really really enjoyed it.
It was a little slow to get going, but once it took off it really came into its own as a super strong read. So clever and diverse and important.. I'm really glad I read it.

Compelling voices and interconnected lives revealing truths of the time, with each new story as absorbing as the last. This book is an amazing collection of voices, of experiences, and of lessons learned in vastly different lives. I haven't read anything like this before and it was such a brilliant journey.