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bookedbymadeline's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Slavery, Child death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Racism, and Colonisation
Moderate: Grief, Racial slurs, Death, Blood, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Rape and Pedophilia
michaelion's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, Slavery, Racism, Abandonment, Child abuse, and Colonisation
Moderate: Blood, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Grief, Sexual content, Genocide, Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, and Miscarriage
Minor: Rape
ella_hat's review
- 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
Moderate: Grief, Murder, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Child death, Suicide attempt, Rape, Death, Pregnancy, Racism, Religious bigotry, Blood, Colonisation, Slavery, and Suicide
Minor: Body horror
sherbertwells's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
“Don’t be afraid. My telling can’t hurt you in spite of what I have done and I promise to lie quietly in the dark—weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the blood once more—but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare teeth. I explain. You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one fully of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog’s profile plays in the steam of a kettle. Or when a cornhusk doll sitting on a shelf is soon splaying in the corner of a room and the wicked of how it got there is plain. Stranger things happen all the time everywhere. You know. I know you know. One question is who is responsible?” (3)
“Night comes and I steal a candle. I carry an ember in a pot to light it. To see more of you. When it is lit I shield the flame with my hand. I watch you sleeping. I watch too long. Am careless. The flame burns my palm. I think if you wake and see me seeing you I will die. I run away not knowing then you are seeing me seeing you. And when at last our eyes hit I am not dead. For the first time I am live” (38)
“Rebekka’s understanding of God was faint, except as a larger kind of king, but she quieted the shame of insufficient devotion by assuming that He could be no grander nor better than the imagination of the believer. Shallow believers preferred a shallow god. The timid enjoyed a rampaging avenging god. In spite of her father’s eagerness, her mother warned her that savages or nonconformists would slaughter her as soon as she landed…Brawls, knifings and kidnaps were so common in the city of her birth that the warnings of slaughter in a new, unseen world were like threats of bad weather” (75)
And it’s a good story too! It’s a little bleak, but it never denies the humanity of its characters. I am told this empathy is a central characteristic of Morrison’s writing. If that is the case, A Mercy may be the first book by her that I read, but it will be far from the last.
Graphic: Religious bigotry and Slavery
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child death, Grief, Medical content, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, and Violence
Minor: Vomit
The ages of the characters are very ambiguous throughout the story. Sorrow and Florens are described as "a child" by some people--probably she is in her teens--and is in a relationship with the smith, who seems to be an adult man.