It’s a ritual for me to buy at least one book at the airport before boarding my flight. And that’s when I stumbled upon Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. The fact that it won The Booker Prize Award in 2019 caught my eye. My experience with Booker Prize Award winners hasn’t been great. They have never met my expectations and somehow felt subpar compared to other novels. The only exception is The Vegetarian by Han Kang. To this day, I fail to find the right words to describe my feelings for it because it’s one bizarre little book that I will never forget. So after a lot of contemplation, I decided to give the 2019 Booker Prize, Award winner, a chance. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo is a book I can finally say is deserving of the award. 

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo follows twelve very different characters on an entwined journey of discovery. 

The synopsis is just a single sentence that aptly describes the book. Don’t let that allow you into thinking that it’s a bad book. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo surprised me because it subverted my expectations. What I thought would be a pretty average book despite the rave reviews it received because I’ve learnt not to trust award-winning books turned out to be a book I loved. 

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo is a book set in Britain. And many people claim that it describes life in Britain accurately. I’m not a person who has set foot there, so I don’t know how true the claims are. But whatever it is, I enjoyed reading all about it. The book is not without its flaws, the most prominent one being the dialogue. It was downright irritating at times. And there were instances where I skipped the entire sentence because I could not understand what the character was trying to say. I get that people speak with different dialects, and I liked that it represented diversity. But for those who are not exposed to it, it can be quite cumbersome to make sense of it. The other flaw with the book is the writing style. Not that it’s bad or anything. It’s just that it takes a while to get used to since it barely uses any punctuation marks.

This book has twelve separate stories to tell, and Bernadine Evaristo did a great job at it. There was no repetition, and each story was unique. I loved that the stories were intertwined as each of the characters interacted with each other. It was a reminder that life is so dynamic and diverse that no two people have the same life story, even if they have the closest blood relation. The portrayal of each character was so well done that I loved all of them. It showcased the good, the bad and the ugliest side of each character cementing the complexity of human nature. I think what got it to win The Booker Prize Award was that it explored meaningful, deep themes of feminism, gender identity and womanhood. It brings a lot to the table that could lead to a debating frenzy. Honestly, I felt like a country bumpkin reading this book because I realized I was not aware of many of the things mentioned in this book. I loved that, for me, it was not just a story but a teaching moment as well.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo is a book worthy of winning the Booker Prize Award and one I highly recommend reading. Its unique, exuberant storytelling and diverse characters will draw you in. My rating for this book is 4.5 out of 5.