Reader Response

Goodreads.com: Beloved seemed to be a hit or a miss on Goodreads.com. People either gave it a five star rating, or a one star rating. For the most part though, people agreed that Morrison had a talented way of making her novel “poetic” and people liked how she connected the two dark stories of murder, and slaves running away. One reader, Glenn Sumi, who rated the novel five stars in February of 2015 said, “Other things that will haunt and disturb me: the idea of black slaves being compared to animals; the sequence in which Paul D discovers just how much he’s worth in dollars and cents, compared to Sethe, who is basically a breeding machine to create more slaves…. the description of Sethe’s back, so severely scarred from whippings it resembles a multi-branched tree, or Paul D talking about slaves having their mouths pried open with horses’ bits”. Many other commenters agreed with him that Morrison did a great job of leaving haunting images in their minds, which lead to important questions, that might not be able to be answered.

BarnesandNoble.com: Readers on BarnesandNoble.com found Beloved to be very powerful, one reader saying it was “The most moving, soulful story of the slavery experience I have ever read.” Another reader simply labeled it “Provoking”, giving it three stars and saying that it was a good book, but the difficulty of the novel threw her off. Overall though, many readers found it to be “Hauntingly beautiful” and have said it will leave a lasting impression on them as well.

Amazon.com: Amazon-shopper T. Decker wrote on July 4, 2016 that Beloved is a “Classic of American Literature” and Toni Morrison thoroughly deserved her Nobel Peace Prize for the novel. Another reader, James S. Bennett said he started to read the book because of the recent killings of unarmed black men by police officers and wanted to “understand how black people in this country experience life, and starting with the shameful history of slavery seemed like a good place to start”. Bennett agreed that Beloved lives up to all the excitement it gets, and is hard to put down. Other Amazon customers overall agree with Bennett in saying that this novel is more relevant now, than ever.

I would have to agree with the majority of the online book reviewers. Especially Glenn Sumi from Goodreads.com who said the images from Beloved would be in his mind forever. I have several different books already whose stories and characters I am reminded of in simple, everyday life activities, and Beloved is sure to be added to this list. The thing I like most about Beloved is that Morrison focused it more on women in slavery, which to me is an interesting topic, which I don’t think is talked about enough. And I also whole-heartedly agree that Morrison’s poetic style of writing is what tied the whole thing together.