Rating: 
Summary: Moving and extremely powerful
Review: The story is very controversial and difficult to think about. But the way Morrison writes is so moving and powerful that I think the book is a must read. It is important that our society read books that give such insight to historical times. To be able to read this book is difficult and challenging but also so incredibly inspiring. Morrison writes in such a way that you believe you would act in exactly the way the main character does. Unbelivably powerful!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Beloved was an amazing story. It took you on a roller coaster of emotion from pure disgust and disbelief to sympathy and understanding. The way Toni Morrison writes is somewhat hard to follow at first, but you get used to it, and it is a very effective way to tell this type of story. By the end of the book you see your life from a whole new perspective, it is definately worthwhile reading. It does however involve intense thought and concentration to fully appreciate the value of the book.
Rating:
Summary: A pure work of genius
Review: This book was one of the most amazing books that I have ever read. It pulled on my soul and made my heart skip a beat. The main character of this story, Sethe, is such an amazing character that you both hate and relate to her situation at the same time. An ex-slave that escapes with her three young children to safety, Sethe, is amother that I believe anyone can blieve in. When her ex-owners come to bring their "property" back, this amazing women actually kills one of her children and tries to kill her other three in an atempt to save them from the horrid life of slavery. Although it seems very difficult to relate to such a gruesome crime Toni Morrison makes you feel that you would do the same thing in an instant for your own child. And whem you thought that this was all that you could take the baby that Sethe illed come back as a ghost and you can't figure out why. I kw it is a little hard to believe in ghosts and such things like that, but Toni Morrison does a tremendous job describing the unthinkable ad crazy life of this woman,Sethe, and her children. This book is also a great challenge to understand and to get through on your own I would definately recomend reading it with a reading group.
Rating:
Summary: incredible
Review: toni morrison is a genius. there is so much in this novel--it's drenched in symbolism and literally almost every sentence has a deeper meaning than the one it seems to have. if you can take the time to read it more than once and see how different themes connect, what different sections mean, i would definitely recommend it. but if you don't have time for more than a surface reading, i would still recommend it, because there's enough plot and beautiful writing to hold a reader's interest. either way, there is so much to learn in Beloved. it should be required reading for anybody who wants to better understand the history of our country.
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: Toni Morrison has a unique style of writing, and this book was all that I hoped it would be. Several times in my reading I had to put the book down and think about what I had just read. It is really complex though, and you get the feeling sometimes that you are reading poetry and not prose. Definately a must read.
Do not read this book if you like very simple and to the point language.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: I thought this book was really incredible. I would recommend it to any who can appreciate the reality of life, though it may be a little too strong for some people. Nevertheless, I would strongly urge anyone to at least attempt to read this powerful novel because it gives you a new perspective on your own life and the way you're living.
Rating: 
Summary: As Confusing As My Life
Review: This novel touches many bases. It touches th human soul through its plot. Ti touches the readers mind with its complex writing. The powerful message behind the story over shadows and confusion. The mixes between reality and memory puts the reader right into the book. This stiry of slaves who are free after the civil war reveals the desperation and pain they went through. Slaverey must have ben very horrible for a mother to try and kill her own child.
This book was intrigueing, The fact that most references in this stiry were alot and makes the reader think, "Does this have a meaning?" It makes you think," what does this word, or this name mean?" The author used great references, such as the turtles refering to what will happen between Beloved and Paul-D. The interpretations of some things are up to the reader. For example, the house number 124, could refer to one being Setheall alone, two could refer to Sethe and denver living in the house together,and four could mean Sthe Denver Beloved and Paul-D. This might be true because it is the first word at the very beginnine of the novel.
The twists and turns in the novel leaves tyhe reader hanging even after you are finished. The fact that Beloved runs away in the end makes you feel as if she wasnt real, due to the fact that she left as quickly as she arrived.
Overall, this story was great if you love touching novels about slaver, but if you like being caught up in a confusing mess of memories mixed with real life. Then this book id for you! T would suggest rading this only if you have to. Reading it for fun, won't be. This book is not for fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: book review: beloved
Review: BOOK REVIEW
BELOVED Toni Morrison's Beloved, is a well-written book. It takes place shortly after the Civil War. It is a story of slavery and love, and how they affect you. Events in the story make you think about how hard life is for a black person.
Sethe is one of the main characters in the story and she has a lot of things going on in her life. She has had a hard life of slavery and memories that haunt her. Sethe has a lot of emotions bottled up inside of her that she tries to forget, but she can't seem to let go of the past. She kills one of her children because she loved it so much. She thinks about her murdered daughter a lot. That event is one of the times when you have to ask yourself, was it out of love or was Sethe just crazy.
Beloved comes back to life and that is when things really start to change. Denver, Paul D, and Beloved admire Sehte. Whenever Sethe Spends too much time with just one of them, the other two get jealous. Sethe, Denver, and Paul D are suspicious about beloved. One day Denver realizes that Beloved is her sister that Sehte murdered. Later in the story Sehte slowly starts to realize that Beloved is her daughter and she gives up everything just to please Beloved. Sethe get sick and weak because of all the sacrifices she makes for Beloved. Sethe starts to forget about Denver so Denver goes out to get some help from people to try and save her mom. One day beloved disappears and no one knows what happened to her. You have to wonder to yourself, is Beloved real, or was she a ghost to get revenge on her mother for murdering her.
The book is well written because sometimes while you are reading you can actually feel what a character is feeling. For example, when Sethe has all her flashbacks she gets confused and the author wrote the book so you would get confused with her. After you read something you would have to go back and read again to try to understand what is going on. You would relate to how she was feeling at the time.
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Puzzle
Review: The book Beloved is a captivating and enthralling story about a woman who is forced to confront her horrible past in the hopes of dealing with her present, and perhaps, what remains of her future.
The main character is Sethe, a former slave-woman who escaped from her bondage after being raped by two young white men from Sweet Home, the plantation they all lived on. She fled from Sweet Home and arrived at 124, the way-station house where her mother-in-law lived. For a while they were happy, until Schoolteacher, the new owner of Sweet Home came after Sethe in an attempt to make the best of her remaining "breeding years". In a desperate attempt to protect her children, she wounded her sons, murdered her baby daughter and was about to kill her youngest child, Denver, until a family friend stopped her.
From that day on, everything seemed to go downhill: Sethe's two sons ran away, her loving mother-in-law Baby Suggs died, and 124 was haunted by the spiteful baby ghost. Sethe and Denver lived alone and isolated in the condemned house until Paul D, who used to live at Sweet Home with Sethe, arrived at the house and scared the ghost off. Finally it seemed like the characters could move on with their lives, but then a strange woman, who said her name was Beloved, appeared in their front yard and the characters were swept into a tidal wave of emotions dealing with their pasts.
Beloved is like the daughter Sethe thought she was protecting with murder, the sister and companion Denver never got to know, and the seductive young girl Paul D yearned for when he was living at Sweet Home. One by one, Beloved gained control over the characters, and treated each of them like meaningless "rag dolls".
Throughout the story, the characters are forced to remember all the events of their past they try so hard to repress. Sethe struggles with the memories of Sweet Home and the dreadful day she swept up her children when she saw Schoolteacher coming; Paul D fights with his memories of being jailed in Alfred, Georgia; and Denver tries desperately to remember the stories Baby Suggs used to tell her about her "angelman" daddy.
The story is a confused mixture of memories and emotions the reader is forced to piece together. One of Morrison's aims was to allow the reader to experience the same painful journey the characters were faced to go through confronting the nightmares of the past so the present could be dealt with as well, and the author did an excellent job. There was no way you could read the story and not feel like you, too, were experiencing the painful memories of the characters.
Morrison also presents this to her readers: is it really possible to imagine just how bad slavery really was? Can people really even begin to imagine the horrible reality of one of the cruelest aspects of our history? For a mother to think that death is the only way out of a life of slavery, it had to have been pretty serious in pushing someone's mind beyond the barriers of right and wrong. Sethe believed she was protecting her child-could she really have been that terrified for her daughter that she murdered her? Morrison's masterpiece surely makes her readers question time and time again the savageness and barbarity of such an awful and cruel way of life some people were forced to deal with.
Rating:
Summary: A Unique Experience
Review: Beloved is a very twisted story that gives you an excellent insight to the lives of slaves and free blacks in the post civil war era. Toni writes with a very different style that makes reading a real task and treat. The constant flasbacks and viewpoint shifts keep you reading carefully and cause you to absorb the entire life of the book. the characters are abstract yet familiar, and their interactions are very odd, but are shown in a way that is easy to identify. Toni has written a book that is very different than any other, and the technique is very fitting to the story that is being told. This story revolves around the freed slave Sethe and the troubles she and her family go through. She has experienced many traumatizing events, such as having her milk stolen and having to kill her own child. These events, and having to experience the pain of slavery cause her to be very closed and unemotional. She struggles with the memories of her former abuse. She pushes them deep inside, and when they come up they shake Sethe and her family. Sethe lives in a house with her daughter in seclusion. They are separate from the outside world with only the ghost of Sethe's dead baby for company. This changes when Paul D., Sethe's old friend from Sweet Home, comes to stay with them. He chases the ghost away, and begins a family with Sethe and Denver. All is looking good until they find a young lady with baby-like skin who changes everything. This book focuses on memory and tells things through flashback and remembrences. This causes the reader to be pulled through a whirl of time and events, where one has to read and reread to follow and understand what is going on. While difficult to read, this causes the reader to absorb all the events and get the full effect of what has happened to the characters. The reader learns as they do, and grows with them. This book shows a very dark side of humanity; topics like racism, mercy killing, rape, and abuse are delved into and explained in excruciating detail. The reader feels the pain and sorrow of loss, and the anger ad hate of being mistreated. The story brings the reader through every emotion and experience,painful as it may be. This book is a very different piece of literature. The style, themes, and characters are very different than what are typically depicted, giving the reader a unique and interesting treat.
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