Giovanni’s Room is stunningly written and deeply unsettling. 
Baldwin’s prose is effortless, but the emotions it unearths are anything but. 
This is a story about self-betrayal, the slow suffocation of fear, and the wreckage left behind when someone refuses to claim their own truth.

David is maddening. 
I found his cowardice infuriating, and his self-denial painful to witness. 
He has love in his hands—real, messy, passionate love—and he throws it away for the illusion of safety. And in doing so, he doesn’t just ruin himself; he takes Giovanni down with him. And Hella, too. 
No one walks away unharmed.

What makes Giovanni’s Room so devastating is that Baldwin doesn’t offer redemption. 
This isn’t a story about overcoming; it’s a story about losing. 
About what happens when shame is stronger than love. 
And yet, you feel for David, even as you want to shake him. 
You understand why he makes the choices he does, even as you rage against them.

This was not an easy read for me. 
Baldwin makes you sit with the discomfort, and by the end, you understand just how much has been lost.