Scan barcode
mdavis26's review against another edition
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Alcohol
3littlewordz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-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
4.0
This is the final standalone novel (really a novella) from the beloved Toni Morrison, and I'm so glad I listened to this in Muva Morrison's voice!
I don't have the vocabulary to express how I felt reading this novel. No words were wasted at all, and I actually wish some storylines (Where did Bride's father go? Could we go more into depth with Queen's background? Why was Sophia even in a position to be falsely accused?) were further explored. Still, with less than 200 pages, Muva Morrison chose which storylines to illuminate very intently. I had to keep reminding myself that Bride was pretty young because most of her decisions made absolutely no sense to my late 30s mind. The themes of child sexual and emotional abuse were interwoven throughout the story - incredibly heartbreaking, but it was not gratuitous. My only drawback is the length of the story, but I will gladly listen to or read again!
I don't have the vocabulary to express how I felt reading this novel. No words were wasted at all, and I actually wish some storylines
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
sbnielsen's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
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
3.0
I didn't like the characters though I'm not sure I was meant to like anyone. This book reminded me of "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" with a less abhorrent protagonist. As always, Morrison is a master of her craft and I can't complain about the quality of writing. The story and the molestation plot devices just weren't for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
tianxiao's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment
sierranichole's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Hate crime, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual assault, Grief, and Abandonment
Moderate: Death and Domestic abuse
Minor: Cursing, Car accident, and Cultural appropriation
emilyeehaw's review against another edition
dark
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
this unfortunately was not one of my favorites from toni morrison. this book is essentially "all the ways you can traumatize and fuck up a child". of course since it's toni morrison, she delves into these topics with a bit more nuance and buffers a lot of the fucked-up nature of the events with her distinct way of writing.
but i just left this book feeling sad. it was interesting to read about bride and booker's relationship and see how that turned out. bride was definitely a character that kept my attention.
but i just left this book feeling sad. it was interesting to read about bride and booker's relationship and see how that turned out. bride was definitely a character that kept my attention.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Racism, and Sexual assault
karneasada's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Pedophilia, and Physical abuse
blackcatkai's review against another edition
emotional
sad
medium-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? It's complicated
5.0
CW: child abuse, racism, colourism, violence, blood, casual ableism, sexual content, sexual assault (adult & child), death, murder, pedophilia
and outstanding novel about childhood trauma and how it affects people through adulthood. upsetting, sad, while still hopeful & wonderful. this was my first Toni Morrison and it will absolutely not be the last.
and outstanding novel about childhood trauma and how it affects people through adulthood. upsetting, sad, while still hopeful & wonderful. this was my first Toni Morrison and it will absolutely not be the last.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Child death, and Blood
Minor: Ableism and Pregnancy
nouanni's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-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
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Sexual assault, and Violence
Moderate: Racism and Abandonment
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: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Torture, and Abandonment
Minor: Death, Pregnancy, and Cultural appropriation