It’s a crime that this is my first proper Toni Morrison read. I’ve been wanting to read Beloved for years, having heard so much about it, but put it off because of the dark/heavy subject matter.

I finally got round to it by doing a buddy read, and after about 50 pages, I couldn’t put it down.

Morrison is a master of storytelling, of deftly weaving the webs of the past & present together to create an unchronological unfolding of horror. Beloved is haunting, violent, mysterious. The trauma of slavery bleeds through the entire book, which makes it very hard to swallow (especially as it’s based on the true story of Margaret Garner). But since America was basically founded on slavery…Morrison’s work is an essential read.