Ratings19
Average rating3.7
Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child--the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment--weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride's mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."
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Took a while to get into, and not what I was expecting, but savagely beautiful by the end. Always helps to listen to it read by Toni herself.
Wish I could say I loved this book, since Toni Morrison is one of my absolute favorite authors of all time, but I just didn't. I didn't like the main character and didn't understand the prominence some of the secondary characters played in various sections of the book. While her books generally have an element of fantasy that you allow yourself to believe, it felt like it was thrown into this one as part of a formula that didn't work.
And all that said, there were of course the usual passages of brilliance. Glad to hear she intends to write at least one more, because I think this one needs some redemption.