***JOINT WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019***
'We the women,
Whose praises go unsung,
Whose voice go unheard'
This is Britain as you've never seen it.
This is the Britain as it has never been told.
From Newcastle to Cornwall. From the Birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl Woman Other follows the cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys to find themselves, throughout this country and the last hundred years. They are each looking for something - whether this is a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father even just a touch of hope.
This book made me laugh, it made me cry and it had me amazed at the resilience of the characters for what they have to go through in life. It did have an unusual layout, Evaristo split this book into 5 sections; 4 sections each dedicated to 3 members of the same family and then one section used to link everything together. This method of writing is not my favourite and at one point I thought that i may not finish the book as this was putting me off continuing. It is based on real life and when i read the bio for it i thought this is the type of book that i would enjoy as i love true life/true crime novels. Some of the content made me feel awkward as it describes 12 individuals who are entwined together in a life of discovery and also exposes the difficulties that people go through in life and when growing up.
One of the more awkward areas that i found Evaristo dealt with well, even if it made me feel uncomfortable, was how some of the characters come to terms with their sexuality and the stigmatisation that they experience during this time. It did however help me understand the difficulties people go through and help me understand my 18 year old trans MTF. One thing you could take from this is that the 12 individuals were amazing and strong women and i would have loved to be able to meet them in person and get to know them off the page. I loved that she has used very diverse characters and even through she had split these into 4 groups of four, you can see how each of these groups link into the others and i love that element of the book as it just shows how small the world is.
To get your copy of this book, follow this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Woman-Other
