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michaelion's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
So it's come down to this huh. My last Toni Morrison fiction. This is heartbreaking. I liked the book; it's heartbreaking I have no more novels! But it does mean I can reread them for the first time now!
It's not her best work, but it's not her worst either. A breeze to read as usual. It hooked me more towards the end, or more than halfway through the book, which isn't good while reading but the parts before that were pleasant enough I didn't look at the book negatively. I'm sure it wasn't her intention but it is a little sad she didn't go out with a bang. This book is fine. I love Black love, and that was her primary love through all her books in all its different forms. All her books are about love! 🫶🏾
It's not her best work, but it's not her worst either. A breeze to read as usual. It hooked me more towards the end, or more than halfway through the book, which isn't good while reading but the parts before that were pleasant enough I didn't look at the book negatively. I'm sure it wasn't her intention but it is a little sad she didn't go out with a bang. This book is fine. I love Black love, and that was her primary love through all her books in all its different forms. All her books are about love! 🫶🏾
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Car accident, Death, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Murder, Racial slurs, Violence, Racism, Classism, Abandonment, Stalking, and Death of parent
Minor: Domestic abuse, Bullying, and Confinement
jordanfeht's review
dark
reflective
tense
slow-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
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape and Child abuse
blossominthebooks's review against another edition
dark
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Sexual violence
Moderate: Rape
tayyy_mayyy's review
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Abandonment, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Child death, Grief, Kidnapping, Rape, and Trafficking
sturgeonfish's review
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
5.0
ummm absolutely insane experience. thought it was an alright, meandering, confusing book until about 3/4 of the way through and then it all came together...
the different perspectives were all really masterfully written, i think rain's chapter especially is such an amazing work... perfect, perfect capture of the way kids think and write.
one of those books i will be thinking about like every day for a year i think. so stunning and vivid.
the different perspectives were all really masterfully written, i think rain's chapter especially is such an amazing work... perfect, perfect capture of the way kids think and write.
one of those books i will be thinking about like every day for a year i think. so stunning and vivid.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Child abuse, Racial slurs, and Rape
torts's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I can't bring myself to give this less than five stars, but I also don't really want it grouped in with the rest of my five-star favorites because so much of it is hard to read. Enjoyable prose, poignant magic realism, insightful perspective-switches, but stomach-turning subject matter.
I wish I'd read this for a book club or a class or something, because the discussion questions from the end of the book were great. The ones I'm currently stewing on (with the original numbering retained so you'll get the scrambled-thoughts vibe as much as possible):
3. Kirkus Reviews said of the book, "As in the darkest fairy tales, there will be fire and death." In what other ways is God Help the Child like a fairy tale?
Horrible things happen to children. A woman is punished(?) by losing the beauty that had given her power, as her body gradually reverts to that of a child. (The reverting of her body is the topic of the next discussion question, but I'm not sure I've exactly landed on my answer to "what's going on there?" beyond some sort of atonement. She was attempting to assuage her own guilt with gifts for the woman she condemned and that kicks off the breakup/spiral, but when she helps Queen she's no longer being selfish or superficial and has broken through the walls between herself and Booker so they see each other more as people.) Names like Sweetness and Bride and Rain and Queen for the central women whose roles in one another's stories are something like archetypes.
5. Several of the primary characters have different names from the ones they received at birth: Bride, Sweetness, Rain. What do these new names tell us about the characters?
See archetype-y thoughts above. In fairy tales names have power, as does the withholding of names. In this story, though, the new names tend to tell us what those characters *aren't* rather than what they are. This list should probably include the man who tortured, molested, and murdered children and is repeatedly called "the nicest man in the world" rather than named.
8. Discuss Bride's friendship with Brooklyn. Over and over, Bride says how much she trusts Brooklyn, and what a good friend she is. What do these assertions tell us about Bride's character? Does it matter that Brooklyn is white, with dreadlocks?
Maybe it's foreshadowing about Brooklyn feeling entitled to take over Bride's position at work? But I think it mostly just points to her not being a great person, and says something about Bride being naive? Or at least incapable/uninterested when it comes to understanding other people?
12. The reader's understanding of Booker is shaped by Bride's recollection of his saying, "You not the woman I want," her limited insights about him, and Brooklyn's descriptions of him as a shady character. But in Part III we learn that he's quite different from what we've imagined. What point is Morrison making here?
See above. We should imagine other people complexly, and not reduce them to the moment they hurt us most or judge them by out-of-context actions to fit them into stereotypes.
13. Bride holds on to Booker's shaving brush, and Sofia keeps Bride's earring. Why are these totems important?
Trappings of adulthood? Thinking about them as totems seems important...
23. Nearly every main character has had a brush with child sexual abuse. What is the cumulative effect?
An undercurrent of despair? A resignation to the idea that the world is a brutal place? Something like the meme of the dog in the burning room going "this is fine" as he drinks his coffee, because at a certain point when a character's history gets revealed you're primed to respond with something like "of course."
24. In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Morrison said: "There is no such thing as race.... Racism is a construct, a social construct. And it has benefits. Money can be made off of it. People who don't like themselves can feel better because of it. It can describe certain kinds of behavior that are wrong or misleading. So [racism] has a social function. But race can only be defined as a human being." In the novel, Booker says similar things. Sweetness raised Bride the way she did because of Bride's dark skin. How does this all tie together?
"His words were rational and, at the time, soothing but had little to do with day-to-day experience--like sitting in a car under the stunned gaze of little white children who couldn't be more fascinated if they were at a museum of dinosaurs." Bride's response to Booker's words turn this quote from Morrison into more of a dialogue within the book. The entire novel is a demonstration of how race can be performed (in Bride's adopting her all-white wardrobe to turn the dark skin that made her father leave and her mother withhold love into an asset in a capitalist society that will fetishize the beautiful and the "exotic") and where race-as-a-social-construct is true and potentially comforting, but ultimately irrelevant to the (brutal) lived experiences that are shaped by the social function of racism.
I wish I'd read this for a book club or a class or something, because the discussion questions from the end of the book were great. The ones I'm currently stewing on (with the original numbering retained so you'll get the scrambled-thoughts vibe as much as possible):
3. Kirkus Reviews said of the book, "As in the darkest fairy tales, there will be fire and death." In what other ways is God Help the Child like a fairy tale?
Horrible things happen to children. A woman is punished(?) by losing the beauty that had given her power, as her body gradually reverts to that of a child. (The reverting of her body is the topic of the next discussion question, but I'm not sure I've exactly landed on my answer to "what's going on there?" beyond some sort of atonement. She was attempting to assuage her own guilt with gifts for the woman she condemned and that kicks off the breakup/spiral, but when she helps Queen she's no longer being selfish or superficial and has broken through the walls between herself and Booker so they see each other more as people.) Names like Sweetness and Bride and Rain and Queen for the central women whose roles in one another's stories are something like archetypes.
5. Several of the primary characters have different names from the ones they received at birth: Bride, Sweetness, Rain. What do these new names tell us about the characters?
See archetype-y thoughts above. In fairy tales names have power, as does the withholding of names. In this story, though, the new names tend to tell us what those characters *aren't* rather than what they are. This list should probably include the man who tortured, molested, and murdered children and is repeatedly called "the nicest man in the world" rather than named.
8. Discuss Bride's friendship with Brooklyn. Over and over, Bride says how much she trusts Brooklyn, and what a good friend she is. What do these assertions tell us about Bride's character? Does it matter that Brooklyn is white, with dreadlocks?
Maybe it's foreshadowing about Brooklyn feeling entitled to take over Bride's position at work? But I think it mostly just points to her not being a great person, and says something about Bride being naive? Or at least incapable/uninterested when it comes to understanding other people?
12. The reader's understanding of Booker is shaped by Bride's recollection of his saying, "You not the woman I want," her limited insights about him, and Brooklyn's descriptions of him as a shady character. But in Part III we learn that he's quite different from what we've imagined. What point is Morrison making here?
See above. We should imagine other people complexly, and not reduce them to the moment they hurt us most or judge them by out-of-context actions to fit them into stereotypes.
13. Bride holds on to Booker's shaving brush, and Sofia keeps Bride's earring. Why are these totems important?
Trappings of adulthood? Thinking about them as totems seems important...
23. Nearly every main character has had a brush with child sexual abuse. What is the cumulative effect?
An undercurrent of despair? A resignation to the idea that the world is a brutal place? Something like the meme of the dog in the burning room going "this is fine" as he drinks his coffee, because at a certain point when a character's history gets revealed you're primed to respond with something like "of course."
24. In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Morrison said: "There is no such thing as race.... Racism is a construct, a social construct. And it has benefits. Money can be made off of it. People who don't like themselves can feel better because of it. It can describe certain kinds of behavior that are wrong or misleading. So [racism] has a social function. But race can only be defined as a human being." In the novel, Booker says similar things. Sweetness raised Bride the way she did because of Bride's dark skin. How does this all tie together?
"His words were rational and, at the time, soothing but had little to do with day-to-day experience--like sitting in a car under the stunned gaze of little white children who couldn't be more fascinated if they were at a museum of dinosaurs." Bride's response to Booker's words turn this quote from Morrison into more of a dialogue within the book. The entire novel is a demonstration of how race can be performed (in Bride's adopting her all-white wardrobe to turn the dark skin that made her father leave and her mother withhold love into an asset in a capitalist society that will fetishize the beautiful and the "exotic") and where race-as-a-social-construct is true and potentially comforting, but ultimately irrelevant to the (brutal) lived experiences that are shaped by the social function of racism.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Fire/Fire injury, Pedophilia, Child abuse, and Body horror
Moderate: Abandonment, Torture, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Cultural appropriation, Death, and Pregnancy
mariadomarbelchior's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
The narrative is superb, the sharpness of Toni Morrison is unmatched. This is a tough book to read, especially if you are sensitive to violence, so beware of trigger warnings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia and Rape
chloemia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Sexual assault, Child death, Rape, Child abuse, Death, and Sexual violence
Minor: Drug use and Drug abuse
taviarz's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Leaving this unrated because I think Toni Morrison absolutely did what she intended to do and did it well. The embodiment and lasting effects of childhood trauma and sexual assault is a lot to handle which is why I don’t know if I can say I enjoyed the reading experience or would recommend it to people. Great book but definitely unsettling. CHECK CONTENT WARNINGS
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Abandonment, Sexual violence, Rape, Death, Car accident, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Racism, Violence, Murder, Grief, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Child death, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Gaslighting, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, and Misogyny
Minor: Pregnancy, Bullying, Racial slurs, Transphobia, Vomit, and Alcohol
moviemagus's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Racism, Vomit, Car accident, Child abuse, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Kidnapping and Pregnancy