Name: Giovanni's Room
Rating: 4.280616332819722 (649 reviews)
ISBN: 9780141186351

James Baldwin

First published in 1957, this book attempts to tackle the conflict between homosexual and heterosexual love. It tells of David, a young man awakening to his true homosexual nature, through a relationship with a barman named Giovanni, as he awaits his fiancee's arrival from Spain.

Giovanni's Room

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' Baldwin's ground-breaking second novel, which established him as one of the great American writers of his time David, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fiancée to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David's fiancée returns and, denying his true nature, he rejects Giovanni for a 'safe' future as a married man. His decision eventually brings tragedy. Filled with passion, regret and longing, this story of a fated love triangle has become a landmark of gay writing. James Baldwin caused outrage as a black author writing about white homosexuals, yet for him the issues of race, sexuality and personal freedom were eternally intertwined. 'Exquisite... a feat of fire-breathing, imaginative daring' Guardian 'Excruciating beauty' San Francisco Chronicle 'Audacious... remarkable... elegant and courageous' Caryl Phillips

one of the greatest. i found it very boring at first yet..... its just keep getting interesting... until i can't stop reading it. fast paced and the modern english just made it easy to understand. ngl i hate david so much (no spoiler) but ifkyk.

What a heartbreaking book that unfortunately remains relevant 70 years after it’s published. Man experiences the horrors of suppressing his sexuality and so badly tries to violently conform to what society deems as acceptable that he loses one who loved him and one who needed him.

charlowwe

broke my heart so bad I had to stare off onto the distance  

Xiang

cass

this is my favourite book of all time without a doubt. everything about baldwin's storytelling is engrossing. every reread i am left speechless and sobbing. the way he is able to hold the suspense in the most perfect way before dropping it so tragically is just.... stunning. the way he expresses every characters own self reflection with the people in their lives seems effortlessly perfect. it's so incredible, how he manages to grip at your heart with this almost hemingway esque style of writing and twist it as if you are living alongside these men. jaw dropping. i love this book with every ounce of my soul and every bone in my body.

"if you cannot love me, i will die. before you came i wanted to die, i have told you many times. it is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody.”

James Baldwin resumiu muito bem sua obra ao afirmar que O Quarto de Giovanni se trata do que pode acontecer quando não deixa o amor acontecer. Baldwin acrescenta camadas complexas de classe, nacionalidade, gênero e sexualidade de maneira sutil e assertiva, pensando no contexto de seu (e de nosso) tempo. A história, lindamente ambientada e escrita, partiu meu coração. 

Arissa

"The groundbreaking novel by one of the most important twentieth-century American writers--now in an Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics hardcover edition. Giovanni's Room is set in the Paris of the 1950s, where a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David has just proposed marriage to his American girlfriend, but while she is away on a trip he becomes involved in a doomed affair with a bartender named Giovanni. With sharp, probing insight, James Baldwin's classic narrative delves into the mystery of love and tells an impassioned, deeply moving story that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. Introduction by Colm Toibín"--

so rich and so full of feeling; baldwin imbues david's interiority with such depth, painful as it is, and paints giovanni and hella and the streets of paris with vividness. perfect structure.

alice

What a beautifully tragic story, also extraordinary writing by Baldwin as well, he really have his way dancing around between words. This book feels surreal and really personal, by we witness how David been always running from his identity, refusing to admit it himself, all the bliss but also haunted by shame, fear, and guilt, that later also bloomed into hatred as powerful as his love, he said, that coming from the same roots.

But once again at the end, David still denied it, a selfish coward, betrayed everyone and his own self, and poor poor my Hella, she deserves so much, also Giovanni, all those anguish and yearning, 

. Everyone end up hurting here, and me too break a little here. Overall I loved the expression and raw how this felt, and how messy all of it was. 

Although, I'm gonna tone down a star because some misogynistic sentiment from its character that makes it kind of uncomfortable, but at the same also thought it might a mirror of the said era of this book. 

What a beautifully tragic story, also extraordinary writing by Baldwin as well, he really have his way dancing around between words. This book feels surreal and really personal, by we witness how David been always running from his identity, refusing to admit it himself, all the bliss but also haunted by shame, fear, and guilt, that later also bloomed into hatred as powerful as his love, he said, that coming from the same roots.

But once again at the end, David still denied it, a selfish coward, betrayed everyone and his own self, and poor poor my Hella, she deserves so much, also Giovanni, all those anguish and yearning, sobs. Everyone end up hurting here, and me too break a little here. Overall I loved the expression and raw how this felt, and how messy all of it was. 

Although, I'm gonna tone down a star because some misogynistic sentiment from its character that makes it kind of uncomfortable, but at the same also thought it might a mirror of the said era of this book. 

This book really much more.

we really can shackle ourselves away from freedom. we make it seem so foreign and unattainable that it begins to feel impossible. we trick ourselves into feeling it’s out of reach when we forget that it resides within us. 

there is always agency in love. you only do yourself and your lovers a disservice in telling yourself otherwise. 

first james baldwin book, very very lovely

zolasola

we really can shackle ourselves away from freedom. we make it seem so foreign and unattainable that it begins to feel impossible. we trick ourselves into feeling it’s out of reach when we forget that it resides within us. 

there is always agency in love. you only do yourself and your lovers a disservice in telling yourself otherwise. 

first james baldwin book, very very lovely

absolutely beautiful ... baldwin's writing style balances lyricism with clarity so well

the writing of baldwin is remarkable, i found myself rereading sentences just cause they were so beautifully written…the message i take from this book is that communication is key but david also just didn’t understand himself which made everything more complicated but that’s just part of being a human being of course, we are complicated beings! nonetheless hella & giovanni truly deserved better

micki

deeply painful and gorgeous. to Want! to live ,, even to a bloodier death

petrina

This is a very tragic tale of a closeted man trying to navigate the world as a queer man in the 50s. I wanted to like this more than I did, but it’s very hard for me to take my 2025 lenses off and pretend I am a product of more ignorant times. The book’s prose was gorgeous, and this is one of the most easily digestible classics I’ve read thus far. However, I cannot overlook the rampant misogyny and transphobia.

The only character I enjoy is Hella. JUSTICE FOR HER. I think the internalized homophobia had its place and is not a part of my criticism. I believe the depiction of it to be very well done, but the other stuff seemed superfluous and unnecessary. For instance, there was this section that was just making fun of women but added no value to the story for me. It was just misogyny for misogyny sake.

It’s up to the reader to discern if the problematic characterization of the women, the trans community, and older gay community is just David’s view of the world, or if it’s Baldwin’s beliefs bleeding into the pages. My assumption is that it’s Baldwin being a product of his time. For instance, older gay men are written as sleazy, despicable men. As a 2025 reader, I’m allowed to look at this however I see fit. The problematic aspects of this made me very uncomfortable, though I understand the overall point and perspective of this novel.

It is refreshing to see such an unabashedly queer book that doesn’t rely on reading between the lines or reader interpretation. I just wish the characters were more sympathetic and likable and that it was written with more care to other marginalized identities. I can see why this is a favorite classic, though.

Nik ✨

This is a very tragic tale of a closeted man trying to navigate the world as a queer man in the 50s. I wanted to like this more than I did, but it’s very hard for me to take my 2025 lenses off and pretend I am a product of more ignorant times. The book’s prose was gorgeous, and this is one of the most easily digestible classics I’ve read thus far. However, I cannot overlook the rampant misogyny and transphobia.

The only character I enjoy is Hella. JUSTICE FOR HER. I think the internalized homophobia had its place and is not a part of my criticism. I believe the depiction of it to be very well done, but the other stuff seemed superfluous and unnecessary. For instance, there was this section that was just making fun of women but added no value to the story for me. It was just misogyny for misogyny sake.

It’s up to the reader to discern if the problematic characterization of the women, the trans community, and older gay community is just David’s view of the world, or if it’s Baldwin’s beliefs bleeding into the pages. My assumption is that it’s Baldwin being a product of his time. For instance, older gay men are written as sleazy, despicable men. As a 2025 reader, I’m allowed to look at this however I see fit. The problematic aspects of this made me very uncomfortable, though I understand the overall point and perspective of this novel.

It is refreshing to see such an unabashedly queer book that doesn’t rely on reading between the lines or reader interpretation. I just wish the characters were more sympathetic and likable and that it was written with more care to other marginalized identities. I can see why this is a favorite classic, though.

A beautiful—tragic—book, also my first James Baldwin! Finished in 2 days. I knew immediately that I loved his prose; you sense all throughout the narrative as though David is still in flight from himself, grappling indefinitely with this story, this part of him, recounting and making sense of it, at the same time, resisting sense. I'm so in awe of how Baldwin accomplishes so much in so little time. In a quick 170-page run, it is a serious exploration of the human condition.

Giovanni's Room

Reviews

Highlights