Review: Beloved by Toni Morrison

I was excited when I found this book at a used book sale, because I have heard so much about Toni Morrison’s writing and I have been meaning to get a hold of one of her books. So this was my chance and I grabbed it! 

I must say that I am a bit disappointed. I was expecting a beautiful story, but instead I found it a bit dull and a little confusing at times. She jumps back and forth in time and the narrator changes and sometimes it takes just a bit too long to catch onto that fact, which makes it a bit of a confusing reading experience. 

Beware of spoiler bits below!

The story is all about the people and the different relationships between them, and for me, that gets a bit boring in the long run. I like a plot driven story, and while I do think there was some plot development in the book, it almost always came in the form of flashbacks. These flashbacks were spaced far between, so you got to know the backstory of how these people ended up where they are at the beginning of the book bit by bit. 

The book had some weird sections. Especially one towards the end where Beloved is apparently reminiscing about her time on “the other side”. That section had no punctuation and it took me a long while to understand who was even talking and what was going on. And then still, I never really understood a good many of the references that were made. I was just about to give up, because I thought the rest of the book might be written like that. But luckily, it returned to a more normal syntax with punctuation. Unfortunately the story itself didn’t really pick up for me. 

What I am taking away from this book is that you should not allow mistakes made in the past to dictate the life you live in the present, because that will only bring misery to everyone involved. A good lesson, I should think, but the story of it was just not very interesting. And honestly, if a side character hadn't spelled out the point above, I don’t think I would have even taken that much away from this book. 


I gave this book 1 star on Goodreads.  

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