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Women's Fiction

Beloved

Beloved

List Price: $12.95
Your Price: $10.36
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Toni Morrison has a gift with words but...
Review: ...the book was so satanic, weird, and difficult to follow that I didn't finish reading it. I decided to see the movie instead. I found the movie easy to follow and I finally understood the plot. But I, and my friends, were offended that a baby who was killed by her own mother could come back as a teenage ghost(or demon), become pregnant by a human(her mother's lover), and finally, stand naked and very pregnant on a porch beside her mother in total view of a huge crowd, and then disapear into thin air. This and other demonic depictions took away from the true history of slavery and the aftermath. I realize that anyone can write about anything and it is considered "freedom of speech". I am not criticizing this fact. I am not a prude and am an avid reader. What bothers me is that Oprah, who is admired by so many, featured a book and played a part in a movie (story) that is not only impossible but is 100 percent against Biblical teachings. This book was not unlike "Rosemary's Baby" in reverse. It certainly stays in your mind and causes nightmares!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It is very in depth in showing what slaves had to deal with
Review: Even though this was required reading in my high school I found it to be very tough but because my teacher was able to show us what Morrison wanted us to see and how slavery affected everybody's life. Morrison packed every page with so much information that you need to be patient and take notes while you read. I would suggest getting a group together to pose your questions and have discussions like I had in my class which helped a lot because you miss more than you see.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Shattered Mirror
Review: This is a great book, dense with meaning, dark imagination, and beautiful language. Those three things earn this book four stars. The reason I cannot give this book the fifth star goes along the same lines of what one "professional" reviewer said above, that Toni Morrison has taken a mirror and shattered it leaving it to the reader to put the pieces together. Oh how often and how easy great contemporary writers are abusing this method, marginalizing their readers to a thin crust of university professors and mensa members. Give me Huck Finn, just as ripe a novel, over a lets play "Connect the plot lines" any day. However, besides the plot fragmentation and language density, which leads to the boredom that many have mentioned, what we've got left is one of the deepest explorations of slavery, memory, and family (in that order) in contemporary times.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: poetic genius, but not my bag
Review: I could say maybe one harsh word about Beloved if I wanted to, but I couldn't make it as harsh as 'boring' and consider myself sane. Actually, i just finished reading it about five minutes ago, and feel bad because i really didn't get it. However, I did realize the geniuse behind it. If Toni's writing style can be described with one word, it would be 'poetic'. Unfortunatly, I'm not into poetry, or similies, or metaphors. I realize now that I'm more into story, which this book has plety of, just not the kind I like. So, it really boils down to whether you're into that kind of writing or not. If you are, than this book will easily become a favorite, as it already has for many others.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A matter of concern...
Review: If you don't like a book, or just simply don't enjoy reading in general, why bother to read it? If the book is boring, find something more to your taste. If you don't like the book, don't condemn those of us that do. I personally enjoyed this book, and lok forward to reading more of Morrison's work. Though she is not to everyone's taste, there is no denying her standards as a writer, and this is clearly evidenced by the many awards she has deservedly won for her hard work and dedication. She writes about things that are important to her, something that is sadly lacking from a lot of authors' work nowadays.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: an average person
Review: i didn' t rea the whole book, but i'm about a half way through. the reason why i'm not finished yet was because this book was kind of boring. but i would recommend that you read it to see whats up. don't buy it, check it out from the local library

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The most powerful book I have read
Review: As an adult college undergrad, I was embarrassed that I hadn't read Morrison before being introduced to Beloved in a Literature class. I was unprepared for the power of the novel. Morrison wastes no sentence or word, and uses them to express pure emotion. It is not her intention to "tell a story". As a parent who has lost a child, I was riveted by Morrison's on-target depiction of the soul-searing experience of such a loss, and the way the grief consumes you until you can come to terms with it (the "ghost" of Beloved). This also was the first time I really understood and began to "feel" the horror of slavery. I am not uneducated on the facts, but never before knew the depth of the horror. For those who found the book too difficult or unclear, Morrison describes her story-telling as if you had come to a town and learn about it by meeting people along the way. No one will sit you down and tell the town's narrative in historical sequence. You gather the story as people recall the bits and pieces. Give the book another chance - reread it. When you begin again you already know the story and the words will not be so mysterious.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A rich tapestry of history and family events
Review: Wow. That is really all I can say. Wow. To Toni Morrison, if you ever read this page, I would like to express my gratitude to you for writing this book. I love the way it is so textured, so deep, and so real. I am a grade 12 student, and read this novel as an independent study. It wasn't easy, but it was enjoyable. This truly is a must read!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: GO TONI!! GO TONI!!!
Review: There can be no discussion on how ggod this book is. Despite it's heavy vocabulary and EXTREMELY heavy meaning, this has to be the best book I've ever read. I am about to finish it up for my senior paper, and thanks to good ol' Toni, I will have more than enough material to work with. Anyone who wants a challenge in reading a book but at the same time wants to enjoy it, read this book. It is hot to death!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: beautiful language but extremely heavy
Review: Well, it's almost midnight and I have a ten page paper due on this book tommorrow which I have yet to start. Unfortunatley, though, I haven't even finished the damn book yet, and I doubt that I will!

While Morrison's language is undeniabley beautiful (who else would use the term "baby's venom" to such great effect?), she tends to weight her stories down to almost ubearable levels with the sheer amount of impotance that she places on EVERY SINGLE WORD.

I have heard Morrison criticized for constructing her stories a bit too well, and after reading about half of Beloved and all of Paradise, I have to concur. By carefully placing meaning on every word of every sentence of every paragraph, she slows the story's pace down to a slug crawl. Not only did reading the first 175 pages of the book book take me an inorexible amount of time (and I'm a very fast reader), but when I finally did put Beloved down in mid story,I found that I really didn't care at all! In fact, I actually felt better, as if a sort of weight were lifted from my brain. I know the subject matter is heavy by nature, what with the slavery and all, but it would have been nice had Morrison added a bit of humor here and there to lighten things up. Does Morrison simply take herself too seriously? Who knows. . .

Anyway, even though I ranked the book a on the low side, I still highly reccommend it for the sheer force of its language and Morrison's treatment of the subject matter. (I swear I'm going to sit down and read the rest of it one of these days!)


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