sara reads romance

In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin’s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions—affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

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my review:

“I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass.”

Since I didn’t get to review this before the end of the year I wanted, no, I needed to sit down and review this masterpiece of a book right this second. So here I am. This was my first time reading anything by James Baldwin and I can say that it will not be my last. This book was heartbreakingly beautiful. I’ve been thinking about it nonstop since I finished it on Monday and I’ve just been sitting with my feelings ever since. I don’t know if there’s anything that I could ever say that could even touch the surface of my true feelings for it. Seriously, how can I? It touched my soul on another level. It was about family, despair, love, community, injustice, hope and it made me cry for a good 20 minutes after I finished it. 

Hands down was the best book I read in 2025, is now one of my all time favorite reads, gets my VERY rare 6 star recommendation and even though this book was published in 1974 it is still SO relevant.

“Of course, I must say that I don’t think America is God’s gift to anybody–if it is, God’s days have got to be numbered.”

“We held each other so close that we might indeed have been one body.”

“The mind is like an object that picks up dust. The object doesn’t know, any more than the mind does, why what clings to it clings.”

“The poor are always crossing the Sahara. And the lawyers and bondsmen and all that crowd circle around the poor, exactly like vultures. Of course, they’re not any richer than the poor, really, that’s why they’ve turned into vultures, scavengers, indecent garbage men, and I’m talking about the black cats, too, who, in so many ways, are worse.”