Rating: 
Summary: Thought-provoking
Review: I felt, after reading the other reviews here, that I had to speak out in this novel's defense. Tar Baby is among Morrison's best, and near the top of my list of recent American literature. Morrison's prose is angry here; perhaps that is why so many had a difficult time with this novel. I admit I do not agree with the racial philosophy of this book. The idea of a Black woman "selling out" is preposterous to me. But this does not lessen the impact of the statement, nor does it illegitimize the novel, allowing a reader to dismiss it as bigoted, or separatist. Rather, it exposes one to another point of view which, while disturbing, is nonetheless thought-provoking. Funny, but I always likened her writing style to Hemingway. Distinctly her own. While it is seldom easy to read a book of hers, she is an adept master of language, and crafts sentences filled with emotion and beauty. It is too easy to say this book creates boundaries and contrasts- Black/White, Strong/Weak, Good/Bad. However, the point of the novel is identity. Toni Morrison's examination of this topic is, in my opinion, wonderful, and captivated me throughout.
Rating: 
Summary: intersting looks at behavior, slow but with a good twist
Review: the setting starts slow but after that it goes into an interesting twist, offering no solutions to any of her questions.
Rating:
Summary: Take time With Tar Baby
Review: I read Tar Baby last year and I have to admit I did have a hard time reading the book. You have to read the sentences over and over to understand what she is saying. Then I thought, why is that so bad? As Ms. Morrison said herself, "That my dear, is called reading!" This is not a fast food book, take time reading it. Trust me.
Rating: 
Summary: Torture
Review: Reading this is much like my other experiences with this author: pain. Just unbelievably poor writing. Her success is astounding; her Nobel an embarrasment.
Rating: 
Summary: Long
Review: Very Long and didn't like the ending but other than that it was okay- don't regret reading it
Rating:
Summary: A satire with real bite
Review: "Tar Baby" may not be the most celebrated of Toni Morrison's many memorable novels, but, in my opinion, it's the most fun. Much of the story takes place at the Caribbean mansion of white millionaire Valerian Street. Morrison weaves a deliciously nasty psychodrama involving Street, his flaky wife, the Street's black servants, and Jadine, a young black woman who is niece to the servants and who has been educated thanks to Valerian's money. Into this mix Morrison tosses Son, a dreadlocked black man with a dangerous edge."Tar Baby" is a frequently outrageous satire of racial identity, sexual politics, consumer culture, class consciousness, and family dysfunctionality. Her cast of characters is colorfully warped in an almost Dickensian manner. Particularly interesting is the portrait of Jadine, the black wunderkind beloved by her wealthy white patrons; I think of her as a whorish postmodern parody of early African-American poet Phillis Wheatley. As always, Morrison's writing is marked by passages of poetic power and grace. Check out, for example, this marvelous description of Son's hair: "Wild, aggressive, vicious hair that needed to be put in jail. Uncivilized, reform-school hair. Mau Mau, Attica, chain gang hair." Ultimately, I read "Tar Baby" as a comic tragedy of people trapped in a complex web of racial, sexual, and economic mythologies. Profane, thought-provoking, ironic, and rich in scathing humor, this novel is ample proof of Toni Morrison's writerly talent.
Rating:
Summary: Long
Review: OK, I didn't understand all of this novel, but I liked it. Being a 46 year old while male I probably never will undestand it all. How ever, I can report that the character studies of Valerian Street and his wife ("The principal beauty of Maine") are some of the most devistatingly accurate upper class character studies I've ever read, and very funny in a vitriolic way. This is my introduction to Toni Morrison, and I plan to read more.
Rating:
Summary: Passion
Review: Name the big Black romance novels. I dare you. Name them all. Ok, five, name five romance novels centralized around Black characters, in love, loving, making love, living well, being well that doesn't have four women as successful best friends?
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Toni Morrison is not easy. Do not mistake her ever for easy, do not mistake her subject matters for simple to pierce or to understand. I agree with the previous reviewer, people expect books to be like TV. And they aren't. Good books anyway. Books that are literature. This book is literature.
Hopefully more will come along, more romance that mean something, that say something about culture, about color, about power and the abuses.
Son is all of the projected racial fears and Jadine is the homogenized Black America wants Black people to be/to become. Grateful and still on some level serving in the kitchen (Sydney and his wife). Black people are required to be so much within this world, this America. Savage, erudite, butler, maid/cook and yet all of the characters here in the book, that are White, are one form (rich) here. White is a decision to be, to be a thing, rich, poor, bohemian, angry, depressed, rebllious, vane, but all that is shiftable, malleable. Black however is static from White perception and being Black from the inside out? That's birth from a dead womb.
Rating:
Summary: Lickety-split boring
Review: Good English skills, worth one star, rambling on in endless and trifle details lead to no conclusions in a mesh of decadent white masters full of caprice and down-to-earth-like-in-roots black servants. The one character that came through believable, is the queen of the soldier ants. Lack of phantasies and an absent talent of spellbinding make it utterly boring to the end, lickety-lickety-lickety split. gerborguta
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