My God, this book. It’s so hard to review classics, which admittedly is not often an issue for me. My reading history contains almost no classics. I didn’t go to school after the fifth grade, so I was never assigned any for school, and although I’ve always been an avid reader, I’ve never picked up classics on my own. I took a lit class last semester, and every single assigned reading, I thought “Well, I’m going to hate this.” Every single time, it totally blew […]
The True American Horror Story
Stephen King is considered to be the master of modern American horror, but with all due respect, that’s not true. Haunted hotels, telekinetic prom queens and evil clowns (or just, you know clowns) got nothing on human depravity. Pet Semetary may have freaked me out, but it’s Toni Morrison’s story of the dead child coming back to life that’s going to keep me up at night. Sethe was born a slave but escaped to the free state of Ohio before the Civil War. Haunted for 18 years […]
“I am Beloved and she is mine.”
True story: I’ve never read Toni Morrison’s Beloved until now. I started it the first year of my MA program, but I just never finished it. I’ve always felt a little ashamed, but I managed to push it aside. Enter my “read ALL the books on my shelf!” project and some good, old-fashioned public shaming from one of my students. Yes, one of my students shamed me in class when I admitted I hadn’t read it. It was good-natured. She just really loved Toni Morrison. […]
Beauty and ugliness in race
I’m winding down to the last few Toni Morrison books I’ve never read, and I decided that audiobook would be a good way to help me out with that. I really enjoyed having Morrison read me A Mercy and Home, so a different reader would still work out the same, right? As it turns out, Tar Baby took me for.ever. to get through. I can pretty much say it’s my least favorite Morrison so far. Though I still have Beloved and Song of Solomon to […]