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What Members Thought
I wasn't really enjoying this book in the beginning. I typically encounter this issue with most of Toni Morrison's books. But as I understood the style, the dialects and dialogue, I was taken with it.
A Mercy really is a powerful book, that gives us the perspective and voice of different people - slave, free African, Native American, indentured whites, newly emigrated whites - living and working together in the US during the 1600s. We get glimpses of the slave trade from Africa via the Caribbean ...more
A Mercy really is a powerful book, that gives us the perspective and voice of different people - slave, free African, Native American, indentured whites, newly emigrated whites - living and working together in the US during the 1600s. We get glimpses of the slave trade from Africa via the Caribbean ...more
Toni Morrison masterfully crafts a book about life's cruelties and mercies and how entwined those two concepts are. Each of the protagonists is a vivid, unique perspective on what makes us understand people, events, situations as blessings and curses. Morrison creates sympathetic and stereotype-transcending female cultural characters: Florens, a young Black slave girl with a romantic heart; Lina, an older Native slave woman whose strength and wisdom give her the ability to reconcile her pre- and
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This book is beautifully written and felt, but I didn’t have enough brainspace to really follow it. The relationships between characters are fraught and unspoken and powerful, but it’s written like poetry that merits a longer, more careful read than I could give it this week. I hope to come back to it before too long.
Reading Toni Morrison is always an intense experience. I knew this but A Mercy still knocked my socks off. The force of a mother's love...there's nothing more powerful in the universe.
This one is going on my all time favorites list. ...more
This one is going on my all time favorites list. ...more
This is not an easy read, but it has some incredible issues about colonialism, slavery, ethnicity, class, gender, and motherhood all bound together in pre-Colonial America. You hear each character's story in his or her own words (it can be a difficult read because of the dialect/vocabulary used)-- one voice per chapter. Read this book with someone else so you can discuss it. My 3 star review is simply because it was not an 'enjoyable' read if that makes sense. It was hard work and it's a complex
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Not my favorite of Toni Morrison's work.
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Beautiful! It took me a while to really get into the constantly-switching narration, because the narrators are all so different, but the stories are perfect together. The ending voice is particularly strong. I won't say more, but this book is wonderful, though it might break your heart.
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Dec 04, 2008
Maryanne
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Dec 07, 2008
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