Beloved Book Review

Beloved by Toni Morrison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Haunting. That is how I would describe this book. There were more than a few parts where I was completely disgusted with what is undoubtedly a low point in human history. Black people, both freeman and slave, being treated like livestock, the fear of loving your children too much because they're liable to be sold like cattle, killing your own child because death is preferable to enslavement, it's hard to believe how close this still is to our collective history. More than a few times I had to just stop reading and think about what I'd just read; even though the book would definitely be classified as magical realism, there's a truth behind the fantastical that is disturbing to the modern sentiment. Books like this are the reason I like to read. They remind me of both the good and bad of my, and our, human nature.

Morrison is an excellent writer, it's not hard to see why she won the Nobel Prize – this book is so well crafted that I couldn't think of a single thing that I didn't like about it. Reading it, I was completely engrossed in the story, time period, language, and characters. She is extremely poetic, very singsong – I often read passages out loud so I could properly hear the beauty of the language. That being said, this isn't an easy read in a lot of ways. I was fairly confused for the first third of the book; it's like we're thrown in the middle of a story and we're not explicitly explained about what's going on. The story is so well crafted though, that Morrison is aware of these gaps and fills them little by little as the story goes on. Yes, this makes your task as a reader more intensive, but the effect it has on you when she finally reveals a major detail about a character's past is unparalleled. I will say though that I didn't completely understand the chapters in the first-person perspective of Beloved, maybe we're not supposed to completely understand what's up with her.

As you can obviously tell, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it. It'll probably be too difficult for younger readers but for everyone else, this is a required read in American literature.



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