Book Review- Beloved by Toni Morrison

So Beloved is actually on my bucket list of books I want to read- "Read All Times 100 Greatest Novels". I had to read it for a class so it worked out well!

So a quick summary of Beloved- A young woman Sethe who is born into slavery escapes to Ohio to meet with her mother-in-law and her children who she sent ahead of her.  While living here the white men from where she ran away from come back to take the children.  Sethe commits a horrible crime which shatters her family.  The book takes place in the future when her mother-in-law has passed and she is still dealing with the consequences of her actions from her past.


I feel like Toni Morrison is one of those writers you either love or hate.  Her writing style is pretty complex, and if you are a reader like me who gets annoyed at a "build up" of action only for it to be interrupted by 1-2 chapters of a stream of consciousness, you will most likely not like Beloved.  The most annoying part about reading book like this is when something big is going to happen- Like Sethe is going to attack with a ice pick- and instead of us reading the action, we are told second hand by another character after the fact.  This probably makes me sound like a sick individual but I want to know the gruesome details!

But as a literature snob, I know good writing when I see (read?) it. The language that Toni Morrison uses is like you are reading poetry one chapter after another, which makes sense as to why there isn't much detail about any of the action of the plot.  “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined." After reading three books from Morrison, I have noticed that she makes the reader feel bad for her characters and the crimes they commit.  That the reader is forced to accept the fact that someone could commit the worst of crimes that one cannot even imagine, to escape slavery.

Beloved is on the New York Time's list of greatest books ever written.  It is also in the "Black female literary canon" among many scholars- Although Morrison herself would argue that this particular canon should not exist.

I would recommend Beloved for any poetry lover, or anyone who reads for the beauty of words.  Anyone who is trying to read Times 100 novels, and anyone who has a great appreciation for 20th century literature.

Book Review- Sula

For my major author class we have shifted from reading Yamanaka to reading Morrison. Morrison's style of writing is very poetic. Morrison gets a lot of credit for her literature because it has this harsh truth behind the meaning of the story. Sula is no exception.

Sula is about two friends that grow up in a black neighborhood on the top of a hillside. In the novel, the white folk have basically pushed the poor people, including minorities up to the top of the hillside so they can have better farming and what not. So on the top is this very close knit community. The two young girls are shown in the beginning having a very close relationship that they even seemed like "one of the same". However they choose different life journeys, one staying in their hometown and the other venturing out to the city. When Sula, the venturing one, comes back to the community after many years she notices that the attitudes of her fellow community members has drastically changed. The reader is then shown the difference between the two women.

I wouldn't say that Sula is Morrison's best piece of work, I did really enjoy The Bluest Eye and I just started her greatest novel Beloved. But it is still a pretty good book, it's definitely an easy read because it's short and the language, although poetic, moves along pretty fast. I also really enjoyed the character Shadrock, as he reminded me of my grandfather for some reason, in a nice way of course!

#184 My list of Books: The Bluest Eye

My professor has really chosen some heartbreaking books for our class this semester. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison just happened to be on my list of books that I had made that I wanted to read. I just killed two birds with one stone!


The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, is about a young black child who only wishes to have blue eyes so she can be "beautiful". The little girl, Pecola, idolizes Shirley Temple because Shirley is "the perfect American girl." It is truly sad knowing that The Bluest Eye was written in 1970 and that we, as as society, have not progressed very much. In today's society adults still put pressure on their little girls to be perfect, when in all reality perfection is unrealistic. I guess one could say that I am "fortunate" enough to not know what it feels like to be discriminated and disliked because of the color of my skin like the main character in this novel. But, what Morrison does do in the process of shedding light on the color issue, is also shed light on the "cover-girl" issue also. Morrison uses a girl character to really show the problems with children forming their own identity in today's society.

The Bluest Eye also focus's on the importance of family and one's upbringing. We see that children who have what I like to call, "daddy issues," tend to have a harder time in life. The reader see's this in many character's throughout the book. One of the most prominent is Cholly, Pecola's father who is shown to have the worst "daddy issues." Cholly's issues result in a very violent act toward his own child, and because Morrison does such a great job explain Cholly's background, the reader tends to feel sympathy towards him (not saying that what he does is right because it's down right horrible).

I enjoyed The Bluest Eye a lot. I think Morrison brings to light a lot of issues whether it's race, society, religion, self-image, or simply family dynamics. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who likes a good read. It's also in Oprah's book club if that convinces you further.