Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

13 reviews

lana_taylor23's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Incest, Death, Hate crime, Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Murder, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Stalking

Minor: Misogyny, Police brutality, and Domestic abuse

hannaheinhorn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

this is my second time reading this book. the first time i read it i was in high school, and it completely changed my taste in literature as well as my outlook on life. revisiting it, i loved it even more. this novel speaks with all the appropriate nuance about what it means to decolonize one’s heritage and legacy. milkman is a heinous character, but through him the story of how women love is so eloquently told. i relate to lena a lot, as an oldest daughter with a middle sister and baby brother. i truly think anyone who has had to dive into their family’s history in order to heal will relate and love this novel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Racial slurs, Murder, Misogyny, Grief, Toxic friendship, Domestic abuse, and Death

Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Lesbophobia, Hate crime, and Racism

kari_g's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

5 stars implies that I recommend it, and I really don’t. If you aren’t gonna tough it out, then it isn’t worth your time, but if you make it to the end, it’s truly life changing. I am better for having read this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Incest, Toxic relationship, Blood, Suicide, Death, Terminal illness, Cursing, Sexual content, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Violence, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death, Classism, Gun violence, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Vomit, Infertility, Rape, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Slavery, Terminal illness, and Stalking

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Religious bigotry, Body shaming, Confinement, Alcoholism, Excrement, and Infidelity

momogajo's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Once you get past the first few chapters it picks up. I didn't think that the book was for me until I sat with it for a while. It has some central themes of family, friendship, and racism that the further splinters out into many other themes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Domestic abuse, Racism, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Death, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Sexism, Mental illness, Hate crime, Classism, and Suicide

Minor: Alcohol and Drug abuse

purplehulk713's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Stirring. Toni Morrison certainly knew how to construct wholly unique worlds with realistic racial values and constructs but also her own fictional, ”local” almost, patterns of living that give true character to her novels like Song of Solomon. I felt bad having to rush through it for school, especially since it was a book that we would not discuss for very long, though there a semester’s worth of material to unpack. Though there are definitely hateable characters like Macon Dead II, Milkman’s father, he is characterized so well over the course of the book that you come to empathize with him if not like him for all that he has experienced in his life. Names are incredibly relevant—Milkman, for example, whose name is not his given name, but as he is colloquially known, most likely because since he was born in whatever shape or form, anyone could see that he only sought life for what it could give him, sucking it dry as if it were a milk cow. This is why he forsakes Hagar, whose name literally means “forsaken”, and this is truly so relevant to her character because

she becomes so dependent on his approval of and desire for her that her ultimate realization that she will never have it kills her.

Even the book’s name is so relevant—an allusion to a biblical book of Jewish erotic love poetry, describing a depth of passion for another person without which neither one of them could live. Milkman never truly has this in his life, not with his family, with any of his girlfriends, or with his difficult-to-describe relationship with Guitar. It’s the sense of flight which he seeks the whole novel. The final mysteries including the origins of the Dead family, Shalimar, and the children’s song was so tantalizing both to read and to analyze. My favorite character was Pilate—I found her character most compelling for what I felt was her sincerity despite her position of sentencing (another emphasis on the relevance of names). I only did not give this book five stars because it does not totally click with me, you know? Maybe if I were to read it again. But anyway, will surrender to the air and take flight?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gore, Racism, Pregnancy, Murder, Alcohol, Blood, Incest, Racial slurs, Toxic friendship, Gun violence, Hate crime, Pedophilia, and Sexual content

kers_tin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic friendship, Incest, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Hate crime, Murder, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Racism, Rape, and Suicide attempt

amandas_bookshelf's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Incest, Murder, Police brutality, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Death of parent, Genocide, Hate crime, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Violence, Abortion, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Body shaming, Classism, Colonisation, Cursing, Racism, and Rape

clara_mai's review

5.0

 What a brilliant, complex and powerful novel. While telling the coming-of-age story of the protagonist Milkman, how he grows up in Michigan and eventually moves from North to South in a hunt for gold and a discovery of his ancestry, Morrison also fans out the narrative and introduces about a dozen side characters. They and their stories, and relationships add layer after layer and the further you get into this story, the more connections are revealed to you, if you just read carefully enough. I definitly had to focus and work quite a bit to keep up the level of attention this book demands and it was quite a challenging read. The second half of the book was significantly easier for me and towards the end I coninued to be even more captivated than before. This is the first book by Toni Morrison that I read in the English original (I read an older German translation of Beloved last year and had a feeling that it did not do justice to the original, the newer ones might be better though) and it was such a pleasure to experience the beauty and power of her prose first hand. I won't even try to sum up all the themes and symbolism Morrison incorporated into this story and would instead suggest to everyone to pick up the book and embark on the absolutely wild and enriching journey that is Song of Solomon. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Hate crime, Murder, Racial slurs, Violence, Toxic relationship, Homophobia, and Suicide

aparizo704's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Song of Solomon should be essential reading for your late 20s/early 30s. Self-exploration during this time is almost a second puberty, where roots firmly planted in the communities around us blossom into more concrete relationships, and complexity in others is met with cautious curiosity, rather than contemptuous dismissal. With a national identity shaped by religion (particularly in the South), each generation is confronted with inheriting “the sins of the father”, until, at some point, one realizes both punishment and redemption are self-inflicted. Morrison is the master of creating characters who showcase the duality of finding freedom and self-love in their most destructive traits. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Hate crime, Racial slurs, and Racism

Minor: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Suicide, and Violence

lanid's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Hate crime, Racial slurs, Death, Domestic abuse, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Incest, Murder, Racism, Misogyny, Slavery, Abortion, and Gun violence