Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
( ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆)

I'd like to preface this by saying that I think this is the ideal book to read in one sitting. With most editions being around 160 to 170 pages, its short length works in tadem with its fast pace and engaging plot to form a story that can be devoured by the reader in just a couple hours.

... Unless it is your first book out of a long reading slump AND you're an easily distracted ADHDer who is reading it on a phone of all devices. In which case it will take you the entire month of February and the first two weeks of March to finish, reading it in multiple short sessions of less than an hour each in which you can only get through a few pages at a time.

If it weren't for the aforementioned issue, very specific to myself, and its hindering of the 'personal enjoyment' factor, I would have rated Giovanni's Room a solid 4.5 stars, as I don't find it to have any major flaws.

The main praise I want to give James Baldwin is his prose. The author has a very distinct voice; his language is simple and straightforward, and yet quite impactful - in fact, there were pages where I had to stop myself from highlighting every line! The fact that the author manages to create this effect without ever becoming verbose speaks wonders of how carefully constructed each sentence is, which I find admirable.

But Baldwin's writing shines in the dialogue too. I felt like every character spoke in a very distinct manner, which helped conversations remain engaging and made everyone in the story feel more alive, talking like real people would.

My only criticism is that the story felt confusing at times. Giovanni's Room is narrated in a very disjointed fashion, hopping in between the present (David on his way to Giovanni's execution) and the past (first, David's childhood; then, the months he spent living in Giovanni's apartment). I usually love the narrative choice of leaping through time with little to no warning to the reader, essentially making them have to reread the last passage every time; I find this not only works as a way to keep the reader's attention at all times, but also as a mechanism to make them really think about what they're reading and analyze it, further encouraging them to develop these skills necessary for literary analysis. And yet, in the case of Giovanni's Room, there were times that even with reading back I wasn't quite sure what the narrator meant by what he was saying. This might be just another 'me' issue, though.