Title: Beloved by Toni Morrison

Pages/Format: 324 pages/paperback

My Thoughts: This is yet another book sitting on my bookshelf that I started and never got around to finishing.  Having never read Toni Morrison before, I thought it would be a good idea to read at least one of her books.  I found it hard to get into, and hard to follow.  I felt confused for a good chunk of the book, often wondering if I was missing anything.  A few times, I even had to go back several pages to see if I really did miss anything.

It is different from a lot of the books I’m used to, in terms of how it’s written.  It jumps around and the scenes are disconnected, plus there’s a bit of stream-of-consciousness towards the end.  It doesn’t follow the typical, straightfoward narrative that I’m used to reading, which frustrated me for most of the book.  Towards the end, everything started to make a lot more sense, which eased my frustration. 

I’m really ambivalent towards Beloved.  I loved the imagery, and Morrison’s writing style, as much as it frustrated me.  I felt like I was really there, and had a clear picture of what the characters were experiencing.  On the other hand, you definitely need to be engaged with the book in order to “connect the dots.”

I felt really out of my league when I was reading it- parts of it went right over my head, and like I said before, I flipped back and forth to figure out what was going on.  I don’t know if I’m just completely stupid for not “getting it” (like some of the reviewers on Amazon seem to imply), or if it takes several reads in order to truly understand the book on a deeper level. 

I am willing to give it another chance, since I didn’t read it as carefully as I should have.  It’s definitely not a light read, or something you can read in a few days.  I think when I’m ready to read it again, I’m going to read it more carefully, underlining and writing notes in the margins if I have to.

Rating: Right now, it gets 3 stars out of 5.  It was difficult to read, but I loved the imagery and how Morrrison wrote the book.  Yes, her style was hard to get used to, and frustrated me, but at the same time, I think it worked well for the novel.