A review by thisreadingcorner
Love by Toni Morrison

5.0

Love chronicles the lives of the Cosey women, a granddaughter and widow who used to be best friends but now scramble for purchase in the aftermath of Bill Cosey’s death. Christine and Heed are cohabitating and codependent but adamant in their hatred of each other, a hatred planted by Christine’s conspiracy-minded mother (May) and stoked by Cosey’s indulgent perversion.

“Heed closed her fingers. Christine decorated hers. No matter. They battled on as though they were champions instead of sacrifices. A crying shame.”

There are essays to be written about each and every character in the book, and the way judgement and hypocrisy tap dance through the town. There’s the way Christine and Heed both fall out of social standing despite their opposite childhoods. The brand of toxic masculinity that Cosey and Romen both embody in their sexuality, observed but unchallenged by Sandler. The proxy treatment Junior gives Romen with Cosey to make up for the emptiness of her childhood. So much trauma packed into each and every character’s arc, some of it dressed up as adventure.

The ending is the neatest of all her work I’ve read so far.  L as the narrator makes perfect sense but Junior remains an enigma. It’s not happy by any means, but it is explained, and the conclusions Christine and Heed come to provide some catharsis in the absence of vengeance.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, and Child abuse