God Help the Child

Brilliant. Heart-wrenching. Her most accessible, most beautiful and most breathtaking work.

I always read the most depressing yet beautifully literary books. I definitely need a palate cleanser after this, but Morrison is talented beyond words.

On a scale of 1-100, how much love are you supposed to have for Toni Morrison's books? Cos i have to tell you guys, i was kinda about this book. I love the way she writes about social issues and how the book opens up conversations about colorism, grief and the effect bad parenting has on childrens' psyche BUT I just wasn't crazy sold about the cohesiveness of this story. Anyways, first foray into a Toni Morrison novel wasn't all that bad. Wasn't super great but not bad either. 3.5 stars.

I don't know how she managed to be so vivid and graphically profound with such a modest and simple word palette, but she did it.

I have little experience with Toni Morrison, only reading passages from Beloved before starting God Help the Child. I can’t tell if it was a good place to start or not, but I want to read more by Morrison now. This book was beautifully written, the prose throughout the book was art on its own, to the point that sometimes I would get lost in the words and not the storyline. However, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to sometimes keep reading simply for the beauty of the words and not so much the story. The story follows themes about childhood trauma, especially pertaining to sexual abuse. It’s such an uncomfortable topic but I think Morrison has a way of allowing the reader to open their minds about uncomfortable topics in a way that’s not completely jarring all at once. Bride, the main character is dealing with her own trauma of never being loved by her mother because of her blue-black skin color. Bride would get into trouble as a child just to be hit so she could feel her mothers touch, and even sends a woman to prison for child molestation to have the satisfaction of having her mother proud of her, and discusses how amazing it felt leaving the courthouse having her mother hold her hand. I think this story was really great, and I noticed how all of the characters were flawed but also loved by someone, except Bride until the end. This book deals with motherhood, childhood, abuse, and the ghosts that follows every child who has dealt with trauma around.

Listened to the audio book and had the added benefit of the author reading. This story continued to build and build even with the end just pages away. "You need to be wrapping this up, Toni" I kept thinking, but she was not ready to. The kernel of lesson that radiates through the whole darn thing is that parenting is difficult. Don't enter into it lightly. Relationships are difficult. People are so much more complicated than they might try to present. Life does not tie itself up neatly just because the end is approaching.

2.5 stars This was a very disjointed novel. There are many loose ends and the different narratives really didn't add much to the story. This was my first introduction to Morrison and I'm underwhelmed to say the least. It's not bad, but the theme of childhood trauma could've been explored so much better. Lots of unused potential here, mostly due to the unfocused plot.

Pretty meh.

August 2021