Beloved: Reader Response

In this post I am going to explore different reviews on different websites and see what other people had to say about the book itself and what their thoughts of it were.

GoodReads- On here it gives the book a 3.76 out of 5 stars. Which is okay. I see mutliple reviews that are good like usual but there was some themes that people mentioned but used them for good and bad reasons. For this review it was a negative one and I found it interesting because someone said the samethings but gave the book a good review because of it.:

I don't give books low marks lightly. If anything, I am prone to being carried away by the author's enthusaism and rate books more highly than they deserve. I am an aspiring author, myself, and that also leads me to be kind to the books.

That being said, I really hated this book.

I like fantasy and magical realism. I find the dreams and allegories that live just underneath the skin of the world we can more readily see and touch endlessly fascinating. I like my stories intense and emotional, and I like it when characters are so full of passion that it obscures their sense of the world around them.

That being said, I really hated this book.

I found Beloved incomprehensible to the point of absurdity. It's one thing to have a book that is full of magic and poetry or to have a character's passion overwhelm their ability to describe the world from time to time, but I also need to know what is going on. For the story to grab me, I need to know what the story is.

Did I mention that I really hated this book?

I know it's trendy to read Toni Morrison, but I recommend this book to absolutely no one. I found it a borderline insulting waste of my time.

Barnes and Noble-
On this website they have it 4 out of 5 stars which seems to be the overall trend of things. Either people said it was a good book or whenever there was a lower review it talked about how confusing it was just like the review about in Goodreads. Heres what this review had to say:

Overall I had a hard time with this book. It was a very slow read for me, often talking itself in circles and leaving me confused. Still, I found the story very interesting and thought provoking. I felt awful for Sethe and her family and for the trials they had to endure. Even though, as I mentioned above, I felt that the 'slavery' theme often got overshadowed, I was still struck by the awful fact that slavery did exist (still exists some places in the world) and just how awful it was. Even the "good" slave owners (of "Sweet Home" where Sethe ran from) were despicable and made me shrink in shame.

It was a good book, but hard to read. I don't know how good the movie was, but if it's true enough to the book, I might recommend watching that rather than trying to push through the book.

Still, it's worth reading if only to get a new insight into the world of slavery and racism that raged (and still lingers) in America and the world.

Amazon-

On here the overall rating is good just like the other websites. On here its overall ratings is 4.1 stars out of 5 which is really good. Most of these reviews on here are 5 stars and the have nothing but good things to say about the novel. But it does say again that its still difficult to read and heres a 5 star rating but they talk about this issue that I've been seeing in the reviews. 

I found that I needed to understand the genuine horrors of slavery before I could understand this book. You have to know why Sethe does what she does before you can grasp her actions. Toni Morrison makes that difficult to do . . . maybe she doesn't want anyone to read it who isn't prepared to give their souls to it. So be prepared not to read in your usual way. They aren't just words to be taken in at your normal pace. You'll read, and re-read, and break it down, accept it, then go back and read it again. We all should be changed by this book

Overall I had a hard time with this book. It was a very slow read for me, often talking itself in circles and leaving me confused. Still, I found the story very interesting and thought provoking. I felt awful for Sethe and her family and for the trials they had to endure. Even though, as I mentioned above, I felt that the 'slavery' theme often got overshadowed, I was still struck by the awful fact that slavery did exist (still exists some places in the world) and just how awful it was. Even the "good" slave owners (of "Sweet Home" where Sethe ran from) were despicable and made me shrink in shame. 

It was a good book, but hard to read. I don't know how good the movie was, but if it's true enough to the book, I might recommend watching that rather than trying to push through the book. 

Still, it's worth reading if only to get a new insight into the world of slavery and racism that raged (and still lingers) in America and the world.