Becca! I just finished this book yesterday and it took my breath away. My favorite part about the novel is how the characters expand the natural limitations of our viewpoints. It's so easy to assume every BIPOC is a certain way, or that sexuality is black-and-white and stagnant instead of fluid. Evaristo challenges those oversimplified ways of seeing others, and the deep background of each character does exactly that.
I think my favorite trio of character was the Megan/Morgan, Harriet and Grace section. There was something so powerful about seeing three generations of women, how different but the same they all were, and understanding some of the inherited trauma/biases of their experiences and how those played out in later generations.
YES, I'm so excited to know someone else who's read this! Challenging oversimplification is a great way of putting it—I loved how some of the stories completely flipped the idea I'd gotten of a character from reading about them from another character's point of view. Evaristo is a genius.
Becca! I just finished this book yesterday and it took my breath away. My favorite part about the novel is how the characters expand the natural limitations of our viewpoints. It's so easy to assume every BIPOC is a certain way, or that sexuality is black-and-white and stagnant instead of fluid. Evaristo challenges those oversimplified ways of seeing others, and the deep background of each character does exactly that.
I think my favorite trio of character was the Megan/Morgan, Harriet and Grace section. There was something so powerful about seeing three generations of women, how different but the same they all were, and understanding some of the inherited trauma/biases of their experiences and how those played out in later generations.
Great recommendation!
YES, I'm so excited to know someone else who's read this! Challenging oversimplification is a great way of putting it—I loved how some of the stories completely flipped the idea I'd gotten of a character from reading about them from another character's point of view. Evaristo is a genius.