A review by annreadsabook
Beloved by Toni Morrison

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

Beloved is pegged as a ghost story, and it definitely is, but it's also a horror story of another variety in that it highlights the terror embedded within one's memory, enduring grief, and all that flowed from the dehumanizing brutality of slavery. We wonder whether the past ever truly leaves us, particularly those descended from enslaved people. Through all of this, though, is also the examination and portrayal of motherhood and family--Sethe, as the reader sees, doesn't stop being a mother to the child she lost, while Denver navigates her own relationship to her deceased sister.

All this is to say that I think reading Beloved as only a ghost story sets aside the other pieces at play in this book. It's chilling both because of the clearly paranormal activities taking place throughout, but also because so many of the horrors within the book are very, very real. 
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