rjeilani's review against another edition
4.0
As if it wasn’t hard enough to be black, but to be a dark skin woman? To be blue-black was a different matter. Toni Morrison takes us along the tough journey of our traumatised protagonist, Bride, which follows the moment she commercialised her blackness and transformed the burden to beauty as well as the points where her familial and romantic heartbreaks stole any resemblance of strength she could muster. The novel exemplifies how life’s circumstances could make people do ‘bad’ things, and yet these same ‘bad’ things do not negate our sense of virtue and they always have a humane justification that is worthy of our empathy: “Correct what you can; learn from what you can’t”.
Bride is a symbol of female strength in every aspect. Being born with a darker complexion meant that she had to support herself, even when her own mother, whose role was to provide unconditional love and validation, punished her for it under the guise of being saved from judgement. Bride overcame everyone else’s mistreatment and manipulated the commercialist society by redefining her complexion as being chic, stylish and sophisticated. She even went to the extent of wearing all-white all the time to emphasise and accentuate her blackness, which was a dominant act that revolutionised her marketing strategies. This consciousness allows her to reflect “I sold my elegant blackness to all those childhood ghosts and now they pay me for it” and understand how the unsubstantiated hatred fed into her growth and ambition. I find it ironic how even falsely accused Sofia’s views, “freedom is never free. You have to fight for it. ”, is parallel to Bride’s. No matter the circumstance, it is universal how women are always fighting to be free, whether it be from physical prisons or the metaphorical ones that reside in our subconscious traumas.
But how can Bride find a place for love in her troubled heart? She’s always been presented as self-involved or career driven which means we find ourselves grappling with her dependence on Booker and their interactions with their inner child. For me, I feel as though Bride and Booker’s romance lies in their complementarity. Bride is driven by material goods and public validation, as much as Booker is led by his sense of social justice and nonchalance. Together, they balance each other out, helping one another to confront their childhood traumas and break their unhealthy patterns of behaviour. From Booker’s perspective, we read his thoughts, “At least she’s willing to figure it out, do something, risk something and take its measure. I risk nothing. I sit on a throne and identify signs of imperfection in others”. This highlights the disparity of their characteristics through portraying Bride as active and bold, whilst implying Booker’s withdrawal and observance.
Morrison’s novel encourages readers to face their childhood demons and inspires growth through breaking toxic cycles of parenting and mistreatment in order to confirm a space for optimism and new beginnings. The female protagonist of this story epitomises womanhood in every way as she grows conscious of her mother’s obnoxious mistreatment and eventually rises above it. Her moral craft stems from the acceptance of her wrongs and her willingness to do better for her child than her mother had done for her. “God help the child”. 4 sharp words which are really a plead for direction, that satisfies our inner child and our future bearings.
Bride is a symbol of female strength in every aspect. Being born with a darker complexion meant that she had to support herself, even when her own mother, whose role was to provide unconditional love and validation, punished her for it under the guise of being saved from judgement. Bride overcame everyone else’s mistreatment and manipulated the commercialist society by redefining her complexion as being chic, stylish and sophisticated. She even went to the extent of wearing all-white all the time to emphasise and accentuate her blackness, which was a dominant act that revolutionised her marketing strategies. This consciousness allows her to reflect “I sold my elegant blackness to all those childhood ghosts and now they pay me for it” and understand how the unsubstantiated hatred fed into her growth and ambition. I find it ironic how even falsely accused Sofia’s views, “freedom is never free. You have to fight for it. ”, is parallel to Bride’s. No matter the circumstance, it is universal how women are always fighting to be free, whether it be from physical prisons or the metaphorical ones that reside in our subconscious traumas.
But how can Bride find a place for love in her troubled heart? She’s always been presented as self-involved or career driven which means we find ourselves grappling with her dependence on Booker and their interactions with their inner child. For me, I feel as though Bride and Booker’s romance lies in their complementarity. Bride is driven by material goods and public validation, as much as Booker is led by his sense of social justice and nonchalance. Together, they balance each other out, helping one another to confront their childhood traumas and break their unhealthy patterns of behaviour. From Booker’s perspective, we read his thoughts, “At least she’s willing to figure it out, do something, risk something and take its measure. I risk nothing. I sit on a throne and identify signs of imperfection in others”. This highlights the disparity of their characteristics through portraying Bride as active and bold, whilst implying Booker’s withdrawal and observance.
Morrison’s novel encourages readers to face their childhood demons and inspires growth through breaking toxic cycles of parenting and mistreatment in order to confirm a space for optimism and new beginnings. The female protagonist of this story epitomises womanhood in every way as she grows conscious of her mother’s obnoxious mistreatment and eventually rises above it. Her moral craft stems from the acceptance of her wrongs and her willingness to do better for her child than her mother had done for her. “God help the child”. 4 sharp words which are really a plead for direction, that satisfies our inner child and our future bearings.
woolfism's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
readmoreyall's review against another edition
4.0
Listened to this audiobook read by Morrison herself all in one day. The book is a excellent and hunting look at the scars parents and adults leave on children and the way that ripples into their futures.
andrea_rebekah42's review against another edition
3.0
As usual, Toni Morrison's writing is wonderful. She has a unique voice that I'm always glad to read. In this book, Morrison writes about how childhood trauma impacts her characters' adulthood. It's a great premise and each of the main characters is interesting.
My main issue with the book is that it's too short. I like this book, but sometimes it felt like a draft instead of a finished novel. Readers are introduced to a lot of characters and I thought some were unnecessary to the story. I wish that we would have heard more about the protagonist and the person's life she changed instead of spending valuable pages of this short book on periphery characters. This is a good book, but it isn't a great one.
My main issue with the book is that it's too short. I like this book, but sometimes it felt like a draft instead of a finished novel. Readers are introduced to a lot of characters and I thought some were unnecessary to the story. I wish that we would have heard more about the protagonist and the person's life she changed instead of spending valuable pages of this short book on periphery characters. This is a good book, but it isn't a great one.
lewatoemmmmm's review against another edition
Not enough detail for my liking. A very vague occurrence with an end that makes little sense.
lazygal's review against another edition
4.0
Such a short novel, but so powerful. The issues of skin color and how even within the black community it matters are front and center in Bride's life, with the opening and closing chapters really punctuating them. How her life starts to unravel when her boyfriend leaves, only saying "You not the woman I want" will resonate with any woman rejected, but how she handles things after and the resolution are at once exasperating (particularly with regards to her job) and poignant. At times I wished there were more to the story, but then maybe I wouldn't have appreciated it so much.
ARC provided by publisher.
ARC provided by publisher.
clellman's review against another edition
2.0
i was surprised to not like this very much. it felt hastily written, and shifted clumsily from different narrators'/characters' voices. also, implausibly, most characters had had some casual experience with molestation as children
fjames's review against another edition
2.0
I never thought I'd be giving any book written by Toni Morrison anything less than a glowing review. However, this book forces me to ask: where the hell was her editor? The bones of a fantastic novel are present but scattered. A good editor could have stitched them together, focused the narration, cut down on exposition and strengthened plot. Instead, this book reads like a first draft.
carrienation76's review against another edition
4.0
Ooof, this book is easy to speed through, but the stories of pain and abuse wash over me in the effort to race forward such that it all compounded and hit like a wave in the final 15-20 pages. Overall, a solid a moving piece that examines the reverberating legacy of pain and its relationship to family ties.(Note: I've tagged this as magical realism - there is an element or two woven in the story, but that's not the primary focus of this novel.)