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Book Reviewed by:A "captivating" lesbian romance set in the "wonderfully atmospheric" art world of 1600s Amsterdam (Sarah Jessica Parker, SJP Lit).
At eight years old, Gerta Pieters is forced to disguise herself as a boy and sent to work for a genteel Dutch family. When their brilliant and beautiful daughter Maria sees through Gerta's ruse, she insists that Gerta accompany her to Amsterdam and help her enter the elite, male-dominated art world.
While Maria rises in the ranks of society as a painting prodigy, Gerta makes herself invaluable in every way: confidante, muse, lover. But as Gerta steps into her own talents, their relationship fractures into a complex web of obsession and rivalry—and the secrets they keep threaten to unravel everything.
A mesmerizing historical novel, I Am You is a meditation on gender, an ode to artistic creation, and an unforgettable love story that reimagines the life of renowned still life painter Maria van Oosterwijck during the Dutch Golden Age.
1
1653, Voorburg
I was shy of eight when I was put out to work. The family that took me in was in need of a boy and so it was a boy I became. Hair sheared, last name twisted to my first, I was known as Pieter. Pieter Wyntges. My two family names stacked as one.
It was a long time before I was once again Gerta.
I was happy to be Pieter. I fetched and carried, split wood, and rubbed dirty, splintered hands along my woolen pants. I scurried up to the roof to repair tiles. I did my share of slaughter. From the other workers, I learned a fast mouth and was unafraid to use a boy's bristled tongue.
Given a bed I didn't have to share with two sisters, my own yellow coverlet embroidered with lilies, sweet and savory cakes, bowls of stewed meat—second helpings without even asking—already my life was much better. Hunger makes a selfish grabber of the sweetest child. And the promise of a child's belly full will make it easy to turn a daughter to a boy and a rampant liar of even the kindest ...
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10/09/2025)
I finished a very touching WWIII romance novel - Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey. I Am You by Victoria Redel caught my attention. After reading Mona"s Eyes i thought this would be a perfect follow up so I just downloaded the ebook.
-Lynne_G
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (10-02-2025)
Circular Motion by Alex Foster and I Am You by Victoria Redel. Very different books, each pretty good in its own way.
-Betty_A
Victoria Redel excels at evoking the atmosphere of the Dutch Golden Age—descriptions of Amsterdam are vivid and full of life, and Redel's lush, descriptive writing lends itself well to passages about painting and mixing dyes. It feels as if the reader is right there with Gerta, peering over Maria's shoulder as she works. The two central characters—both complex, contradictory, headstrong yet vulnerable—are the book's other strength. Gerta's relationship with her gender is one of the more compelling central themes, as throughout the book she will at times don her Pieter clothes and readopt her male persona in order to get something she needs, marveling both at the freedom it affords her and the danger that it puts her in...continued
Full Review
(641 words)
(Reviewed by Rachel Hullett).
Benjamin Moser, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters
With clean lines and bright colors, Victoria Redel has put the life into still life, giving us a portrait of Holland at the height of its glory—and an unforgettable picture of the erotic, entangled, tragic nature of art itself. Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season and Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
A lush, sexy, absorbing novel that brings to life two artists who are inextricably linked in passion and competition. Redel is a master storyteller whose exquisite prose held me rapt. A profound achievement.The area known today as the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) had by the sixteenth century been ruled for more than a hundred years by the Burgundy and Habsburg dynasties, before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V transferred power of the region to his son Philip II of Spain. In 1568, Dutch nobleman William of Orange led a revolt against Philip II, launching the Eighty Years' War, during which time several northern Dutch provinces joined forces to declare their independence from Spanish rule. These provinces united to form the Dutch Republic (roughly corresponding to the modern-day Netherlands), which was recognized as an independent country in 1648, while the Southern Netherlands (corresponding to modern-day Belgium, ...
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