nomadreader

The backstory: Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. The basics: God Help the Child  is the story of Bride, a blue-black-skinned woman whose mother hated her skin color. Despite this tension, Bride grew up to be a confident, successful woman. Through Bride and those associated with her, Morrison tells stories of the long-reaching impacts of love and abuse in childhood. My thoughts: I spent much of my time reading this novel thinking "If I didn't know Toni Morrison wrote this novel, I would never guess" and "I don't know what to think about this novel, but there's something odd or weird about it, particularity the magical realism." ...That changed once Booker began narrating. Suddenly, Morrison was back, and the novel really came alive for me with sharp-witted observations: "All he did from freshman year through sophomore was react--sneer, laugh, dismiss, find fault, demean--a young man's version of critical thinking....

The basics: This novella, at its simplest, is the story of Frank Money, a black Korean War veteran and his reacclimation into a racist, divided society. More specifically, it's about Frank's journey back to the rural, poor Georgia town he hoped he'd never return to. My thoughts: What I loved about this book from its first pages was realizing with this book, the simple is also the complex. I'll confess: Toni Morrison used to intimidate me. Looking back, I think I tried to read her on my own far too young. I picked Song of Solomon  off a summer reading list when I was fifteen, and I'd never read anything like it. I knew I wasn't really understanding it. It was the kind of novel I needed someone to teach me or talk about with me. Instead, I let all of her other works intimidate me too. I'm so glad I picked up Home  because it reminds me of how different a reader I am at 31 than I was at 15. It also truly introduced me to how much I enjoy, emotionally and inte...