Scan barcode
pattydsf's review against another edition
3.0
This is my second Morrison novel in less than two months. I read A Mercy for my book group and realized that I found that novel challenging, but excellent. So I wanted to see how I would relate to another one of her novels. This one was read by Toni Morrison.
I am impressed by Morrison's ability to narrate her own novel. Reading for audio books is not easy, and I have listened to few authors who do a good job reading their books. Morrison's reading enhanced this book.
Love was not an easy story to read. As often happens with Morrison's books, when I have finally figured out the story, that is when the novel ends. The reader never knows where Up Beach is, but we do know that the important man in Up Beach is Bill Cosey. The whole book and the world of Up Beach revolves around this man, long after he is dead.
Morrison took me to another world that was unfamiliar to me. She taught me, again, that the vagaries of humans are the same no matter the time or place. People, in Morrison's world do not love or hate easily. Life is always complicated and never easy. However, as I read Morrison, life, no matter what, is always worth living.
I am not sure how soon I want to visit one of Morrison's books. But I will go back for her fiction is challenging and wonderful.
I am impressed by Morrison's ability to narrate her own novel. Reading for audio books is not easy, and I have listened to few authors who do a good job reading their books. Morrison's reading enhanced this book.
Love was not an easy story to read. As often happens with Morrison's books, when I have finally figured out the story, that is when the novel ends. The reader never knows where Up Beach is, but we do know that the important man in Up Beach is Bill Cosey. The whole book and the world of Up Beach revolves around this man, long after he is dead.
Morrison took me to another world that was unfamiliar to me. She taught me, again, that the vagaries of humans are the same no matter the time or place. People, in Morrison's world do not love or hate easily. Life is always complicated and never easy. However, as I read Morrison, life, no matter what, is always worth living.
I am not sure how soon I want to visit one of Morrison's books. But I will go back for her fiction is challenging and wonderful.
ebonyutley's review
3.0
Toni Morrison books should be read twice. I confess to immense impatience every time I read a novel yearning to find out how it ends only to realize that in my rush, I’ve missed a plethora of details that make the ending make sense. Upon arrival at the conclusion of Love, I was also convinced that I hadn’t learned anything and the book was a disappointment until I started to journal and then the ideas poured out of me like the tears of a heartbreak. Reading a Morrison novel is never about the plot for me, it’s about the emotions that are evoked after the last page is turned. It’s about learning about myself and linking my feelings to those of her characters and wondering if that kind emotional solicitation is something I can learn how to do as a writer. The plots of Morrison novels are similar. She notes in the forward that people claim she writes always about love when in reality she writes about betrayal. Because you cannot have one without the other at least not within black lives—imagined and real. (Having never been white, I can’t speak for white people.) And as much as I admire Morrison for writing so introspectively about so many aspects of “us,” I can’t help but feel depressed at the end of her books. So much loss, so much regret. I imagine the only way it doesn’t destroy us is because death is not the end of our lives, it’s just another state of being with room for apologies, exploration, answers, accountability, and love—at long last. Even though from the first pages, I desperately wanted to know who was talking and why and how the story was going to end, I’m glad I had to wait so no spoilers for this review. Read it. Wait for it. Love it. If you can.
rcielocruz's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely gutting. Bewildering. The most stunning use of language. A scalpel that cut open made up people and pulled out true histories and the unending universes hidden inside them. I'm wrecked.
babsxi's review
5.0
The dialogue made this book a little more harder to follow as opposed to other Morrison books, and you could say finishing this was a labor of LOVE. I’m always not sure how to review Morrison’s books, because there is truly none better to me. The descriptions of the setting, characters, and emotions are phenomenal by themselves, and when you look at her work on the deeper lever of plot, theme, and character development, there is no one better.
This novel, like a good chunk of Morrison’s work, is heavy and just blatantly sad at times. She opens the novel suggesting that “loose women” are simply trying to find love in their relationships with men. We realize throughout the book, and more specifically by the end, that this drive is what causes many of the women in the novel to be broken. We also realize that all humans are just looking for love and to be seen, heard, and made to feel safe. True love is safe wanting.
Anyway, Charles Baudelaire said to “always be a poet, even in prose,” and Toni Morrison is my favorite poet.
This novel, like a good chunk of Morrison’s work, is heavy and just blatantly sad at times. She opens the novel suggesting that “loose women” are simply trying to find love in their relationships with men. We realize throughout the book, and more specifically by the end, that this drive is what causes many of the women in the novel to be broken. We also realize that all humans are just looking for love and to be seen, heard, and made to feel safe. True love is safe wanting.
Anyway, Charles Baudelaire said to “always be a poet, even in prose,” and Toni Morrison is my favorite poet.
lilnic's review
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-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
4.25
lunabbly's review
5.0
Toni Morrison does it again! A beautifully written novel full of lust, desperation, secrecy, resentment, and fear -- fear of loneliness and abandonment.
Every small tidbit was so important to Christine and Heed's character development, every page reveals each others' thought processes as they were processing where, why, and how they ended up being best friends to enemies, and finally at the end, understanding and forgiving each other. Their love for each other though, persevered even though it didn't always seem like it.
L, the cook, was also important to the storyline. She's the narrator who appears in italicized text -- and she wraps up the loose ends citing that she knew where the father/husband/lover Bill Cosey put his money and will towards -- Celestial. Who we don't know much about besides the fact that she was Bill Cosey's mistress and she was the one he made the will out to and sent all of his money towards, though L blocked that from happening because it would absolutely destroy the women in his life.
Greater still was that the underlying message was not so much that these women let Bill Cosey control their lives but the way in which misogyny and specifically misogynoir unjustly forces Black women to feel undesired, uncared for, and maybe even a little desperate to be accepted by the people in their lives as they are. Bill Cosey faked that acceptance, and it was enough to allow people like Vida, a former worker of his, to assume he was a good man. He used his "manhood" and privilege as a cis, heterosexual man, to manipulate these women and then eventually blamed his woes on the women in his life rather than his own poor choices and decisions.
I highly recommend. Toni Morrison is a beautiful writer and her prose is captivating as well as the development of the stories she writes.
Every small tidbit was so important to Christine and Heed's character development, every page reveals each others' thought processes as they were processing where, why, and how they ended up being best friends to enemies, and finally at the end, understanding and forgiving each other. Their love for each other though, persevered even though it didn't always seem like it.
L, the cook, was also important to the storyline. She's the narrator who appears in italicized text -- and she wraps up the loose ends citing that she knew where the father/husband/lover Bill Cosey put his money and will towards -- Celestial. Who we don't know much about besides the fact that she was Bill Cosey's mistress and she was the one he made the will out to and sent all of his money towards, though L blocked that from happening because it would absolutely destroy the women in his life.
Greater still was that the underlying message was not so much that these women let Bill Cosey control their lives but the way in which misogyny and specifically misogynoir unjustly forces Black women to feel undesired, uncared for, and maybe even a little desperate to be accepted by the people in their lives as they are. Bill Cosey faked that acceptance, and it was enough to allow people like Vida, a former worker of his, to assume he was a good man. He used his "manhood" and privilege as a cis, heterosexual man, to manipulate these women and then eventually blamed his woes on the women in his life rather than his own poor choices and decisions.
I highly recommend. Toni Morrison is a beautiful writer and her prose is captivating as well as the development of the stories she writes.
olivehead's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
koenjanssen's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0