Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Beloved by Toni Morrison

55 reviews

cosmicbeaches's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s a rich historical story that deals with a mother’s grief and makes one question what is right or wrong.
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kerrygetsliterary's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The rating has nothing to do with the book or the writing and has everything to do with my inability to understand it while reading. I struggled, but that doesn't mean this book is not good. Toni Morrison was a Nobel prize laureate for a reason. 
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zoekyriacou's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely exceptional book! Toni Morrison writes so exquisitely, even though I’m not normally a fan of magical realism and the time jumping can be a little confusing I was totally engrossed in this book. I am ashamed to say this may have been the first novel I’ve read on the main subject of slavery. This book will stay with me for a long time. See trigger warnings as there’s so much dark stuff
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miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

ngl i was very confused for the first 60 pages, i feel like she has a very specific writing style that moves between narrators and time period without announcing it which can make it hard to get into but i actually really enjoyed that after i got into the rhythm. I like that a lot of stories/background are opened briefly in one chapter by a character and then explained in full by another character at a later point, it works rly well for a slow reveal. but yeah basically i rly love she writes and i think the length (tho a bit scary when youre 30 pgs in have no clue whats happening) was perfect
also the way she contrast the horror with little moments of like, sunlight?, like happiness (the iceskating or shadows holding hands etc) was so so so wonderful

'"its gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "Anything dead coming back to life hurts."'

'it never looked as terrible as it was and it made her wonder if hell was a pretty place too'

'she swallowed twice to prepare for the telling, to construct out of the strings she had heard all her life a net to hold Beloved'

'she will forgo the most violent of sunsets, stars as fat as dinner plates and all the blood of autumn and settle for the palest yellow if it comes from her Beloved.'

'Paul D believed he smiled back but his face was so cold he wasn't sure'

'He could not say to this woman who did not squint in the wind, "I am not a man."'

'He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose- not to need permission for desire- well now, that was freedom'

'How fast had he moved from his shame to hers. From his cold-house secret straight to her too-thick love.'

'The world is in this room. This here's all there is and all there needs to be.'

'I couldn't lay down nowhere in peace, back then. Now I can. I can sleep like the drowned, have mercy.'
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grboph's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This was really an amazing book - I've yet to read something by Toni Morrison that I didn't love. The magical-realist elements were new to me and while in all honesty I didn't fully understand all of them, I think I would get them more if I were to reread the book and they definitely added to the story and the complexity of the characters. Denver was definitely the most interesting character to me, and I think my favorite part of the book was when it switched to her point of view for a little bit. While I think I liked The Bluest Eye a little bit better, this was still a quite remarkable book that I will definitely remember for a long time.
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carojust's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was intense, horrifying and beautiful. It is necessary reading on the evils of American slavery, and the uncertain period following emancipation, soaked in trauma and violence.

Toni Morrison wraps history with something unearthly, and has this amazing way of grounding you, and fighting your sense of reality on the next page. 

Stream-of-consciousness writing has always been difficult for me, so "Beloved" was challenging, sometimes a few pages in a sitting. If you have trouble with this, as well as indiscriminate POVs, I understand why it's not for you. But the magical, unique storytelling and the haunting, brave characters are well worth the read.
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ameliaow3ns's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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m1nature's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A tough, but important read.
Intense and disturbing, but most of all full of truth.

It's not a book I would recommend to everyone, and it's not one I particularly enjoyed (although the writing was beautiful), but it's a story that made me think and consider how different decisions can be when life has been lived in a context that is so far flung from my own.

Thought provoking and moving and important.

Please make note of the trigger warnings before reading.
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ehwesson's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This book was very heavy but a good rood. I am glad I read it. 
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sunn_bleach's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

 Beloved was directly cited by the Nobel Committee upon awarding Toni Morrison with the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. I see why. Beloved is the kind of book where I want to doubt the humanity of any US citizen even tangentially familiar with slavery who isn't changed upon reading it. I finished it yesterday and stared into space for a few minutes, unhearing my fiancee ask me what kind of burgers I wanted for Memorial Day. 

Beloved was inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner - an enslaved woman who escaped to Ohio and killed her daughter before being found so her daughter wouldn't return to the horror of slavery. Horror? That word isn't powerful enough to describe American slavery. Likewise, it would be reductive to call Beloved a horror novel. Though the titular Beloved refers to the ghost of one-year old killed by Sethe (one of the book's protagonists) for the same reason Garner killed her daughter, this is so much more than that. Beloved is both her own story and a eulogy for the "sixty million and more" lost through the Atlantic slave trade - per Morrison's own dedication. 

I can't describe more. Nothing I can summarize would be appropriate. It's rare to experience any piece of media so profoundly changing, loving, and heartrending. I can't call it hopeful, but I also can't call it hopeless. The trauma (generational and personal) of slavery is expressed in so many ways - from the "tree" on Sethe's back to the two words "it rained". 

This was my first Morrison novel, and two things surprised me. First, I did not anticipate the book to be so discursive. This is not a bad thing. Characters flit back and forth between different time periods in their heads as PTSD, and several times it's an errant action or phrase that sets them off. (After writing that, a friend told me that Morrison coined the word "rememory" to describe this phenomenon; it's also used in the book.) Second, Morrison has such an incredible economy of phrase where one-off references end up having extreme impact, like
when I realized Stamp Paid was castrated or what Baby Suggs truly meant when she said "lay down your sword and shield", which was otherwise implied to mean "open your heart to love".


"We got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow." 
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