Title: Beloved           

Author: Toni Morrison           

Genre: Historical Fiction/Classics         

Publisher: Vintage        

Format: Paperback 

Pages: 324

Rating: 4/5 stars 

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. 

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Her new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. 

Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.

Review:

This book was interesting, captivating, and so moving. I loved the writing and the story that Morrison built up to showcase many important themes, such as the struggles that People of Colour have experienced in the United States, both during and after slavery!

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The book focuses on Sethe, who is an escaped slave living in Ohio. She lives with her daughter, but her other daughter who died seems to be haunting the house they live in. People from her past come back into Sethe’s life, and she it forced to recount her horrible history. 

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This book is heartbreaking in the sense that is transports you into the house of people who have suffered unimaginable trauma. The book deals with some major themes such as race relations and slavery within the United States, but it also deals with the relationship between a mother and her daughter. The book calls into question what a woman is willing to do to protect her children from the trauma she has experienced, and the judgement she faces for doing so. This book took me a long time to read even though it isn’t very long, but it is a very complicated text with a mix of poetry and prose writing, and I felt like I had to read it slowly in order to do it justice! Definitely a book to check out!

Happy reading!