A review by morgob
Jazz by Toni Morrison

4.0

This is my first Toni Morrison book. I really enjoyed it, especially the last half or so. The reason I'm giving it four stars is because it did take a while to get into it; it didn't start to pick up for me until after ninety pages. I loved the time changes in the narrative, going backward and forward in time to form the complete story. I also really liked how some bits were all dialogue, an oral narration from Joe and Felice, which I thought was really interesting. The question of who the overall narrator was still bugs me, because it was an interesting choice, and at times I thought maybe it was Violet but she has just gone completely crazy and refers to herself in the third person. But I'm still not sure. This book reminded me a tiny bit of A Swiftly Tilting Planet because of how it moved through time. I think that was my favorite part. I blew through the last third of the book because of how fast it moved with the time changes. There were parts of this book as a whole that were slow and difficult to get through, but I did think it was unique and I definitely want to check out more books by Toni Morrison.