God Help the Child (Vintage International)

No surprise, Toni Morrison has another hit on her hands. I was so anxious to get it and read it in one sitting! It is a definite page turner weaved with many life lessons in between. What I walked away with after reading were the spirit filled teachings of letting go of the past and people's perceptions of you. In a short amount of pages, Ms. Morrison presents these really great characters and all their issues with a terrific resolve that leaves you wanting more.

I purchased the hardcover of this book - I purchase the hardcover of all her books, when possible. But, when I learned Toni Morrison recorded the narration for the audiobook I decided to listen instead of read.
If you read Toni Morrison, you understand she is intimately tied to each of her characters, an invisible and unimaginable adhesive binds them, so hearing them brought to life under the guidance of Toni's voice is a rare gift.
This story is not flowery language, it is history and legacy and good words that strike through the marrow to pin to the wall that skeleton all our flesh has hardened over. This book is lesson and warning. What becomes of a child refused basic human kindness?

Ms Morrison's"God Help the Child" is a joyful excursion into very dark emotional subjects. As always her descriptive narrative is filled with images,which are so vivid the words unleash their power and sear into your soul.

While I knew that the book was about people who went through abusive childhoods, and examined how they came through or didn't come through the pain, it seemed like every character in the book had been molested. We are damaged as humans, and damage other humans, in so many ways. Not to diminish the horrors of sexual abuse, or the prominence of it, but I felt she could have addressed a broader spectrum of the things that scar us during our formative years.

I enjoyed the book tremendously but was unhappy with the characterization of everyone other than the protagonist. I realize that this is a novella, but I find the depiction of almost everyone who is white to be pure evil -- lying, treacherous "best friend", child molester/racist, child molester/serial killer -- to be a bit offensive. I am not denying that, yes, white men are usually the serial killers we see on the news, but I really don't like that all white people are painted with a broad brush. Even the kind couple who help Bride and rescue Raisin are seen as outcasts of the "true" white community.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Bride's early experiences which drive her actions are incredibly sad, if not tragic. But white people despise and ruin the lives of their children for other reasons than skin color - jealousy, anger, because they look like their father or grandfather, are too small, cry too much, etc. Toni Morrison is talking about race, but this is a much broader epidemic. It's really about how people view the world in a distorted manner and force their children to deal with the consequences of their misperceptions, not necessarily connected to race. (If you don't believe me, then try to count the number of fu@&.ed up white people in this world . Good luck!

SOMETIMES HARD TO TELL WHICH CHARCUTURE A CHAPTER WAS ABOUT. TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IF THE WAY A CHILD WAS RAISED, BACK THEN, HAD ANY BEARING ON WHAT THEY BECAME AS AN ADULT. VERY SLOW MOVING AND NOT VERY SUSPENSFUL. WAS NOT AN EARTH MOVING BOOK TO ME.

The novel has alternating voices, but the narrative stays first person. Different characters each tell the story. It's a complete love story that neglects neither Eros or Philos, but it does not fixate excessively on any form of love. In short, it's the most perfect novel about its theme that I have ever read.

Toni Morrison is a very skillful and thoughtful. If you have ever felt rejected as a child, this book will help you sort through the situation. Bride became a true woman! Thank you my dear Sister! Your writing gets better all the time. What a marvelous way to weave the story. Each person is described and becomes real. We all may know someone like the characters in this book.

I am a huge Toni Morrison fan and anxiously awaited her new book, God Help the Child. She introduced the reader to her characters, included her typical prose, and wove the thread of child abuse in its many forms throughout the story line. When I finished my first reading, I looked back at how skillfully Morrison portrayed the devastating effects her adult characters had on the children they mistreated and the rippling effect of that hurt. Some reviewers have felt the book was too short and the novel should have been fully fleshed out. I don't think so. In an interview article in O Magazine, "The Reader As Artist", Toni Morrison has said, "the words on the page are only half the story, the rest is what you bring to the party." Her words were enough to start the party for me. I plan to re-read God Help the Child soon.

Beautiful language as always from Morrison but I was disappointed by mostly flat characters and lack of depth. Too many characters seemed to be stereotypical or an easy reverse of same. Feels much like Jazz and Love which reverberated but must admit do not recall the story lines tho I cared more in those than I did in this one. Perhaps TM is done with lengthy, complicated novels which we all adored.

As always, her language is poetic and haunting. The story is set in modern day - a new twist for her but the story of Bride and Booker is carefully nuanced and romantic in its own way. A wonderful book from a wonderful author!

I would have loved to keep on reading but it was over. These characters are now a part of me. Childhood leaves scars in most of us and sometimes they're deep. I truly saw myself in this book. It's that good!

The ending is disappointing to say the least. It's not that the ending is bad, it should not have ended right where it was all starting to come together. I mean you talking about a cliff hanger! I am still trying to figure out what is the point of the story.

It's not just the words and the story, but they way the book is crafted into chapters of different characters that draw you in and hold you until the book is finished. It's been a long time since I've read a book this hard to put down.

Toni Morrison is a great story teller. Her characters are always interesting.
The book is well written,love the vocabulary.
Reading a book by Toni Morrison is always a treat.
Looking forward to meeting her one day.
Willie Pop Johnson

This book made no sense to me. I only read 30% of it, but the chapters were not flowing together at all. Every chapter was written from a different character's perspective and did not seem to pick up where the previous chapter left off or even the last time that particular character spoke. Paid too much, not happy!

The first section contains richly achieved voice, which has always been a strong card in Morrison. But the narrative goes haywire in much of the rest of the book. Surely I'm not the only reader who responds to Bride's sudden loss of and equally sudden recovery of her breasts and body hair with a basic "Huh?"

Don't make this your first Morrison. All of her work up to and including her 1992 JAZZ is gold, but a reader gets a rough ride in everything she's done since then.

But, that's not saying much, considering the power of her other books.

It was a strange, short read. Maybe I'm too far removed from my graduate school days to have fully understood her angle, but enjoyable nonetheless.

This is a great book and easy read. I know there must be a sequel in the mix...or several! I could feel a back story in each of the characters lives that about which I'd like to know more. Great insights and awareness provided!

Way too short! I was reading and loving it and all of a sudden it just stopped. She shouldn't write that well and then just quit. I feel like asking for my money back as the book on Kindle was a VERY high premium item. Too bad.

I feel the need to first premise this review with some background information. I first read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (her third book) while a junior in college. I was not yet an English major but was still struggling in a major and discipline that I neither liked and for which I was poorly suited. What kept me functional and just on the up side of sanity was reading. I read Song of Solomon in one day and found it so compelling that I read it again, this time taking it more slowly and with a much more critical eye. I was hooked and for months little “Morrisons”—kernels of quotes from the book—swirled around and within my head, finding release in the strangest and most unplanned of situations. With quick succession I read every thing else that Morrison had published: The Bluest Eye and Sula.

By the time Tar Baby was published I was in grad school studying English. It was the early 80s and literature by black American women was hitting a stride not experienced to that time. From Alice Walker’s The Color Purple to the poetry of Audre Lorde and the literary criticism that accompanied them, the literature by black women was taking off” and flying high. For Song of Solomon Morrison won the National Book Award and then the Pulitzer Prize. We in Pamoja, a writer’s workshop hosted by Toni Cade Bambara (Morrison was Bambara’s editor for The Salt Eaters) laughed and told stories in celebration as Bambara described the giant photo that met travelers in Grand Central Station, where the cover pages of Newsweek magazine were displayed.

And then came Beloved. To say that the book had an impact on me that no book had had to that point would be an understatement. Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones, Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name had been my blocks on which I built my identity and by which I measured the importance of other works. Beloved became my trumpet upon that wall, blaring out an announcement that I had been born and learned to read and then learned to digest literature at the exact right time. I read it twice the first year of its arrival and every year afterward for about 12 years. And though I had declared that I would be a Morrison scholar and write my doctoral thesis on her works, other interests intersected then collided, changing my focus to Caribbean women writers and bildungsroman.

To say that the works after Beloved were not as meaningful or weighty would be speaking an opinion held by many. In that vein then, this review of God Help the Child is written. A relatively short work (at 178 pages), God Help the Child is ostensibly a story about a young woman who was born extremely dark (blue-black) to her very light-skinned parents. In and of itself that fact is not exceptional as there have been many other works about “too dark” Black girls into women. The theme that ties this work together is child abuse and the sexual assault of children. It’s behind almost every character’s psyche and controls and thwarts them at every turn. From one character being fondled by an uncle to the death of another’s young brother by the hands of a serial child rapist and murderer. It is this theme of child abuse that gives the main character, Bride, her sense of self and her greatest accomplishment at the start of the story. She had gained love from a mother who hated and shunned her, rarely touched and never praised her by testifying against a woman accused with other teachers of sexually molesting children.

Bride has been transformed from “ugly’ in the eyes of her mother and others who loathed her very black skin, to beautiful and exotic for that very same skin. She has fought to the top of a large cosmetics company, creating her own line of cosmetics for black women and marketing herself and her startling beauty in doing so. Her relationship with a mysterious man, Booker, has come to an abrupt end, and she sets off to first see the woman who has served fifteen years in prison on the basis of Bride’s testimony and to seek explanation and perhaps reconnection from the man with whom she had what she thought was a viable relationship.

Overall the book engages the reader but there seems to be something(s) lacking. And it’s not just the shortness of the novel. One of Morrison’s greatest works—The Bluest Eye—is a little more than 100 pages but packs such a wallop that the reader must fight for breath and strength to live in the world of Pecola Breedlove. There is no such assault on the mind in God Help the Child. Characters other than Bride (and to an extent even Bride) seem sketches. Bodies waiting for more description, movements, sayings, thoughts, and minds waiting to be populated and painted with more colors than the few offered. One example of a “narrow” character is Rain, the girl who happens along after Bride’s auto mishap. Her “bio” seems unforgivingly shallow, connecting to the “theme” with her accounts of molestation and attempted molestation and her interest in Bride’s interest of her. It’s as if Rain is added to reveal the widespread evil that is child sexual abuse.

The love that Bride seeks in the form of Booker is also “just” fleshed out. Bride has no real knowledge of him when they are a couple. She doesn’t know and thus doesn’t ask how he spends his days, what he does for a living, what he thinks or from where he has come. He has secrets that tear at him and thus at the weak threads of their mostly sexual relationship. She has secrets that cause her to regress figuratively and literally to childhood. And even when his past is accounted for and the nature of his abrupt flight from Bride revealed, there is still a hankering on the reader’s part for a little more.

It is more than page numbers obviously that make a book. But the slimness of the latest Morrison offering is like the feeling one gets when eating at a restaurant that at one time had earned three Michelin stars and that is now barely making the ‘A’ list of the local paper. The food tastes okay but there is something very much missing. The gastronome doesn’t expect the hit out of the park at every sitting but certainly looks back in awe and with a sense of nostalgia, wondering if the chef will ever make another dish worthy of those repeat and utterly intoxicating meals. In the case of Morrison’s works it seems safe to say that there will be no more Bluest Eyes or Beloveds as offerings. God Help the Child is just an average meal—filling but forgotten soon after the taste is gone from the mouth.

Let me acknowledge an important truth about this review: an aspect of it is completely unfair. It has an expectation and a hope that holds one of the greatest novelists of the last half century to a higher, unfair standard. My first read of Song Of Solomon as an undergraduate was like my first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. I had no point of reference to describe its brilliance, its ability to astonish. Beloved was even more powerful. When an author can, convincingly depict an act of murder as both understandable and loving, readers have to put down the book and rethink what they know to be true.

Such is the greatness and the burden of being Toni Morrison. Folks (like me) are always jonesing for another cathartic moment. While I acknowledge the unfairness of expectations, I'll stick to the 3 stars. Even earlier TM is much better than God Help The Child. There is a wonderful moment in The Bluest Eye when the child of a family housekeeper unintentionally spoils the birthday cake of the white employer. It is the innocent action of a child, but angers the mother. She blames her own flesh and blood because a white child's birthday is tarnished. It is a searing testament to the invidious power of racism. When one is so completely certain that they are inferior, one puts another's child before their own. It is revelatory for those who have not experienced such a moment.

There are none of these moments in God Help the Child. Ms. Morrison writes very well, and the story of Birdie is interesting. Occasionally it's engaging but never remarkable. Racial, biblical and cultural archetypes are the foundation of any Morrison work but here they seem familiar, not astonishing. The introduction of Rain and her connection to Birdie was the most intriguing to me, but not fully developed. The behavior of Sweetness ironic but unsurprising: we've seen it better done elsewhere. Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Richard Wagamese's Iron Horse are far more impactful and engaging.

Two reviewers I respect very much--Jill Shtulman and Roger Brunyate like GHC far more than me, so please read their impressions/reviews. They're always worthwhile--get an alternative opinion. Also, don't be discouraged by naysayers who complain the book is less than 200 pages. One of the greatest novels I've ever read (Gilead) is only about 50 pages more. One of the best I've read in the last year (Indian Horse--thanks Jill Shtulman--great rec) wraps up at 220. Bulk is no measure of literary genius. Besides, the Kindle download of this novella is less than a pack of smokes in NYC. And far more nourishing. So by all means hit the unhelpful button. And don't hesitate to point out that like Albert Einstein, she's got a Nobel Prize, a pension from Princeton and an amazing head of hair. Who can beat that? Not me.

Ms. Morrison wields her powerful voice like a scalpel as she cuts to the bone of her characters' pretensions and defenses. The language of this slim novel is quite powerful. But is it so mercilessly true that no one can ever overcome one's childhood? And have ALL children in Ms. Morrison's frame of reference been forever damaged by murder, violence, substance abuse and sexual abuse? I refuse to give up hope that SOME children, regardless of race or ethnicity or social background, are loved and protected, growing up with caring adults and positive role models. Maybe they just don't make very interesting subjects of novels.

This novel has a strange, almost abrupt, split-personality ending. Is it positive or negative? You decide. I also must admit I found the pre-pubescent symbolism of Bride's changing body disconcerting and filled with mixed messages, especially in view of the ending. The sexual undertones of the shaving brush, and the handing off of said brush to the damaged Rain also seemed out of place. And, other than as a mean-spirited stereotype, I am not sure what the character of Brooklyn (name symbolism?) adds to the story. I would have liked to have learned more about Queen, who seems the most genuine person in the story, but [mild spoiler alert] her fate is sealed in another abrupt, grotesque sequence.

This is a quick read, but one that is tough to "enjoy," as it seems to deliver several conflicting messages.

This is a terse read with an even more terse theme: the things we do to children matter. Because children who are raised in pain grow up to be adults in pain, which pain they then pass on to those they love and those who love them.

God help all the children in this book, for all of them have suffered in one way or another. There’s the protagonist, Bride, denied love by her mother because of her black skin. There’s her inamorata Booker, permanently scarred by the death of a beloved brother at the hands of a pedophile. Booker’s aunt Queen has left a trail of abandoned children in her wake, all of whom hate her. And Rain, the only actual child in the book, has fled from a mother who sold her into prostitution. Each of them seeks to mend their wounds in dysfunctional or ineffective ways: through sex, through music, through poetry, through sensory stimulation, through betrayal. Morrison’s message is clear – lest you miss it, Morrison hammers the message home at the end of the first, brutal chapter: “But it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not.”

Don’t worry about the plot – it scarcely matters, and Morrison scarcely bothers to justify the story’s many improbabilities or inconsistencies. Besides, who reads Morrison for plot? This novel delivers what Morrison’s novels infallibly deliver: memorable characters, lyrical prose, a little magical realism (for example, Bride’s body literally reverting back to adolescence), a whopping dose of empathy for all the damaged people in the world, and the hope of redemption through love.

Toni Morrison is one of the most important authors in contemporary black women's literature, but also literature period. I read three of her books for the first time this year and was blown away. When I found out she had a new book coming out so soon after i'd read some of her others, I was really excited.

God Help the Child is the story of a girl who was rejected by her parents for being very dark skinned and constantly sought love from her mother. While Morrison's writing is top notch as always, I found that the plot didn't draw me in. Unlike her other books, I wasn't obsessed with sorting out the puzzle of events and violent acts to get to the heart of the fears and desire of the characters who committed them. Instead I was mildly indifferent to the sufferings of Bride, mostly because the book only tangentially references her childhood and instead focuses on the fact that her boyfriend whom she knows nothing about left her. Her journey to go find him felt aimless and I didn't quite understand why she cared that much. This was especially confused by the strange time she spend living with a hippie couple after a car crash that did nothing to advance the plot.

By the the time she meets back up with Booker and they talk through their childhood traumas and sort out their relationship I understood why they loved each other. The message of the book shone through clearly and it was beautifully written. I just felt that despite the amazing individual sections and passages, the book as a whole did not come together for me. I think this was aided by the strange tone of Sweetness that seemed out of place with the supposedly modern time period.

As always, Toni Morrison has written an interesting story about how it's important to confront the darkness in our pasts not just internally but among our friends, lovers, and communities. I just don't think this one completely worked 100% of the time.

This was a very quick read, completed in less than 8 hours with many breaks. Varied points of view from the multiple characters (a la Faulkner) including the omniscient narrator at the end. That said, all of the characters, with the exception of Rain, sound alike!

This is the only Toni Morrison novel set in the present, which revealed a weakness for the author. Morrison does not have a firm grasp on writing in the present. The vocabulary, the places, the situations all took me to the 30s-50s. The twenty-three-year-old main character Bride is not like any twenty-three-year-old I've ever known. When her age was revealed, I was shocked. I thought up to that point she was at least in her late 30s.

And speaking of Bride, what's with all of the strange character names? Bride. Booker. Rain. Sweetness. Were those choices attempts at artful metaphor? If so, they didn't work well. Too "on the nose."

There was very little depth to the characters. Potentially great setups, but no payoffs. It was almost like the story read like a plot outline. Here's what's going to happen. All skeleton, and no organs or flesh. Some of the situations also seemed implausible. And geez, all of the sexual abuse. Maybe there's that much in real life (probably), but this novel was filled with it, without doing much with it. The ending also felt wrapped in a nice little bow. Very unexpected.

It would be a strong attempt from a lesser writer, but I'm slamming it because I expected more from the esteemed Morrison.

We read this for my book club, and we had a very lively discussion about it. There's a lot to think about - what each of the character's motivations were and how they interacted with each other, along with race and how children are raised. It's a quick read (I read it in less than a day), so if you also have a book club that likes books that produce lively discussions, I recommend this book.

The author describes a number of aspects of race that, as a white woman, I have not been exposed to. It's always nice to "see" through other people's eyes to understand a little bit more about their experiences. While I can never truly understand, books like God Help the Child help me be more empathic.

I will say, however, that it was a very tough read for all of us. I don't want to give anything away that's not in the description, but "weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult" is very accurate. If the "sufferings of childhood" will bother you too much, pass on this book.

GOD HELP THE CHILD is the first novel of Morrison's to be set in the present. It focuses on the life of Lula Ann Bridewell, who was born with skin too dark for her mother, and hence had a thoroughly neglected childhood. Although requesting her daughter to call her "Sweetness" (which is in itself an irony), the mother did little for her except mistreat her, or imbue her with a fear of doing wrong.

Now Lula has grown up and renamed herself Bride. A successful executive with a cosmetics company, she apparently enjoys a financially secure life, with a stable boyfriend and excellent prospects. Yet she cannot reconcile herself to the terrible lie she told as a child that led to a miscarriage of justice; this is compounded by the fact that her boyfriend Booker leaves her without any apparent reason for doing so. The bulk of the novel consists of a quixotic journey Bride takes into the wilds of northern California, ostensibly to find Booker, but in truth to explore aspects of her character that hitherto she has willfully kept hidden. As she goes from place to place, experiencing kind of social indignities that she thought had been conveniently banished from her life, so she comes to discover the importance of truth, both to oneself and to one's fellow human-beings.

Told from a variety of narrative perspectives - Bride, Sweetness, Booker, as well as Bride's mercurial best friend Brooklyn, GOD HELP THE CHILD offers a painful exploration of how the "truth" about one's life is perpetually relative; one person's right might not necessarily be shared by another. None of the protagonists are entirely "bad" or "good"; they just try to muddle their way through life, doing what they think is right. Sometimes their decisions might prove catastrophically wrong - for example, the way in which Booker conceals most of his past life from Bride - but there is always a valid reason for making that decision.

Morrison writes sympathetically, while possessing a unique capacity to sum up her characters' various states of mind in a few well-chosen words. She is particularly adept at the telling metaphor that sums up both visually and verbally what someone thinks at any particular time. GOD HELP THE CHILD MAKES some trenchant points about the color issue in the contemporary United States, which is as significant today for ordinary people as it always has been, despite the efforts of successive governments (and other organizations) to insist that the country has become more multicultural in focus. Yet the novel is far more than a criticism of prevailing attitudes towards blackness, whiteness, and what they mean; it is much more interested in the struggles of ordinary people to make sense of the world around them. Morrison's latest novel deserves to be given the title of a modern classic.

Toni Morrison is one of my favorite authors. Her writing is as insightful as it is beautiful to read. As tragic as her stories are, they still present a nobility of character, wonderful characters that stay with you. This is a slight, beautifully written book with alternating narrators, presenting various views of Lula Ann, a very beautiful, very black girl whose mother hardly touched her because she was so dark. "I always knew she didn’t like touching me. I could tell. Distaste was all over her face when I was little and she had to bathe me. Rinse me, actually, after a halfhearted rub with a soapy washcloth. I used to pray she would slap my face or spank me just to feel her touch. " Lula Ann changed her name to Bride as she gained confidence and become part of a growing make up business called Go Girl. The novel weaves in and out of time, giving us various narrators. But the defining moment for Lula Ann is when she testified against one of her teachers, sent her away for child molesting. This made her mother proud and she walked with her hand and hand after the ordeal. Her boyfriend , Booker, walks out on her when he hears that she wants to help the child molester as she is released from prison, 15 years later. Her attempt at some kind gesture does not go well. Three of the novel's characters have some life changing experience with molestation. The Times' critic notes, " Child abuse cuts a jagged scar through Toni Morrison’s “God Help the Child,” a brisk modern-­day fairy tale with shades of the Brothers Grimm: imaginative cruelties visited on children; a journey into the woods; a handsome, vanished lover; witchy older women and a blunt moral — “What you do to children matters. And they might never forget.” Their stories haunt them, preventing them from moving on. Only in the end after another tragedy, is there some hope that new life can make them whole.

In God Help the Children, Morrison presents us with an unapologetic and steely story about a series of intertwined characters who have, in some way, experienced or been affected by child abuse, usually of a sexual nature. But, unlike many books on that topic, the story isn’t really about child abuse. It’s about resilience and love and mistakes and…there’s so much more, it’s hard to put into words, but I’ll do my best.

The main character, Bride, has had a life defined by her midnight blue-black and skin and striking dark eyes. During her childhood, it was the cause of her mother’s disgust and disdain for her. In adulthood, it became the mark of her beauty and self-confidence. However, in the aftermath of the abrupt end of her relationship with Booker, a man who made her feel whole and at peace, Bride’s life begins to spiral into disaster as she searches desperately for the security she once felt. As she becomes more and more intent on purging her past of its demons and figuring out the story behind Booker’s spontaneous abandonment, Bride’s distress increased as she realizes that, mysteriously, her body is regressing to its childhood state. Intertwined with Bride’s story are interjections from the perspectives of her mother Sweetness; the woman she put behind bars for child abuse; a enigmatic child named Rain; Bride’s best friend, Brooklyn; and even Booker himself. All of this leads to a fantastically forceful account of the character’s to make sense of and let go of the past.

The book is short, but its impact will last a lifetime for me. Morrison has a way of constructing a narrative that seems almost opaque in its simplicity, until you near the end of the story and realize that you’ve absorbed and been affected by themes and ideas that seemed elusive but were actually bombarding you the entire time. I’m embarrassed to admit that this is the first book of Morrison’s I’ve read (I know, right?), but I’d be interested to hear from others who’ve read her books if this is something characteristic of her writing or whether it’s unique to this book. Either way, I can’t wait to delve deeper into this monumental writer’s work. Although the themes of this book can be shocking and hard to swallow, especially because they are presented almost casually, but it’s a moving and important read. Definitely, definitely give this one your attention.

--Elise Hadden, Under the Heather Books (...)

When Sweetness, a light skinned African American woman gives birth to her daughter, Lulu Ann, she is shocked. Lula Ann is as black as ebony, almost a blue/black. Her husband was out of town working as a porter for the railroad and when he comes home, he does not want anything to do with Lula Ann. They fight and eventually split up. Sweetness does not let Lula Ann call her momma or mom. She has her call her Sweetness. She doesn't take her out in public because of what people will say. She decides that she has to treat Lula hard in order for Lula to survive in a prejudice society. Or, so she thinks. She never gives Lula Ann affection or love. It is only until Lula Ann testifies against a teacher for child molestation, that Sweetness tells her how proud she is of Lula and begins to show her affection.

Years later, Lula Ann changes her name to Bride, short for her last name of Bridewell. She starts working for a cosmetic company, moves up in the company to became a regional manager, and then again to become head of her own line of cosmetics. She meets a man named, Booker, who give her the love, affection, and attention she craves. When one day he tells her, "You not the woman I want", Bride falls apart. Her rejection begins once again.

She tries to reach out to the woman that she testified against, upon the woman's release from prison. She becomes so obsessed with the thought of Booker being gone, that she decides to hunt down Booker to find out exactly why she isn't the woman he wants.She ignores her work, her friend Brooklyn, and all her responsibilities in order to track him down.

Of course, things happen along the way and she will find the truth.
This is a small book which may account for the underdeveloped characters. It was a disappointment from what we have read in the past from Ms. Morrison.

God Help the Child (2015) is the last novel written by the Nobel Prize for Literature (1993) Toni Morrison, but I didn’t like it. It didn’t meet my expectations. I thought it was mainly a book about a very specific kind of racism, that of light-skinned Afro-Americans against dark-skinned members of their community, but that is the main topic only in the first amazing chapter where Sweetness is shocked to see her daughter’s ebony skin.

Bride is the main character and once she grows up she becomes a successful businesswoman for a make-up company. She wears only white clothes and drives a Jaguar. She is a wonderful example of exotic beauty, but when she decides to pay a visit to a woman who has just been released after spending many years in prison, her golden-skinned boyfriend Booker leaves her.

It’s now that the novel turns into an endless series of child abuse cases. When she was eight, Bride accused a teacher of being a child molester so that her unloving mother could be proud of her, the little black girl doing the right thing. The problem is that the poor 20-year-old white woman was innocent, but because of Bride she spent 15 years in prison, so it’s perfectly understandable that she beats her up even if Bride tries to offer her several thousands of dollars when she’s released.

The list of child abuses includes also Bride witnessing her white landlord raping a white boy when she was six years old, a white girl who was sold by her mother to men who wanted to have sex with her, Booker’s older brother being killed by a white serial child molester, Bride’s white friend Brooklyn repeatedly molested by her uncle and Booker’s cousin Hannah who was sexually touched by her father.

Child abuse is surely a terrible thing, but it can’t be possible that almost every character of this novel is affected by this evil. The novel doesn’t sound realistic! There are more sexual abuses here than in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Another element I disliked is the surreal changes in Bride’s body. During the most critical period of her life, she loses her pubic and armpit hair, her chest becomes flat and her ears aren’t pierced anymore. While she’s facing her past, Bride turns again into a scared little girl. It’s only when she finds the fugitive Booker that her womanly attributes reappears. I want pure realism, I don’t like symbolism and I wasn’t expecting it in a novel like this.

Booker is a loser. He has a degree in economics, but he never worked in this field. He leaves his parents’ home after a quarrel and starts playing his trumpet on the streets. During the six months he lives with Bride he idly spends his time reading books and playing with his friends now and then.

At the end of the book both Booker and Bride know each other’s childhood traumas (Adam’s death and the falsely accused teacher) and Bride realizes she’s pregnant, so they decide to give themselves a chance as a couple, even if they are not the best match for each other. Where will they live? What job will they find to earn a living? Booker was a loser from the start, but now also Bride has lost her efficiency after disappearing from her job for two-three months.

The novel closes with the 63-year-old Sweetness living in a nursing home and wishing that God may help Bride’s child, the unplanned boy or girl of her 23-year-old daughter who was born in the 1990s.

Another beautiful piece of writing from Ms. Toni Morrison. The book is similar to her others, so if you're a fan of Morrison's you'll not be disappointed by this one. Like all of her novels the characters are well-rounded and flushed out without a whole lot of words. She shows you who they are without having to tell you everything about them.

Like her other books, every poor child she writes seems to have been screwed over by adults...is there one child character in her books that has not been sexually abused? Hell, is there an adult in any of her books that haven't been sexually abused? Maybe this is my white privilege speaking, but I would like to think this isn't realistic. Not every child is sexually abused, nor 95% of people as Morrison seems to indicate in her books. If it is my white privilege, and this is common in African American childhoods would someone please let me know!

Anyway, that was a total side step. This is a great book that you should definitely read!

foremost this is a love story, and afterward a sketch of the various two parent households in which children inhabit during their most dependent and vulnerable years.

bride is very black in color, born to a couple neither of who is as dark as she is. her skin color results in the break-up of her parents’ marriage. the mother’s shame at her daughter’s dark skin was justification for her method of child rearing a very black child in a world where skin color is stigmatized.

bride, not her given name, a name changed when she became a successful adult within the cosmetics industry, appeared to have grown up without too many psychological scars, that is until the release of a woman from prison led bride to an unreasonable set of actions, resulting in her abandonment by her boyfriend with his own tragic past shrouded in mystery. as in greek tragedy, bride searches for her estranged lover, and along the way meets a number of abused and murdered children.

morrison leaves the reader wondering if romantic love can afford the price of marriage, or the procreation of children to be born in so perilous a world.

a brief foray into magic realism, as bride’s body reverses in maturity back to that as a child, reminding this reader of the italian fairy tale pinocchio and the growth of his nose for every lie told, and the change of skin colors of the lovers in john updike’s Brazil.

Although the book is well written it is very short and seems almost as it is an excerpt from a larger novel. There are "snapshots" of significant events in the characters lives but for some of the stories, just like life the reader does not get to see how it ends. While I enjoyed the writing and how the characters and their situations were presented I did not feel satisfied because it felt like the book was unfinished. For Toni Morrison fans this is something they would probably enjoy but if you are just starting to read her works then go to some of her earlier novels.

Morrison boldly looks into the traumatic face of reality -- the stories we all know exist in our world, but that we tuck away into dark recesses in our mind so that we may be comfortable in our every day lives. Expertly written and unashamedly direct, this is a must read.

God Help the Child follows the character Bride, whose story is complimented by the satellite stories of the people who come into contact with her life -- Sweetness, Booker, Brooklyn, Sofia, Queen, and Rain. Bride is a young woman who has escaped her sheltered and oppressed life at home with her mother, Sweetness, and has now made it big as the developer of a cosmetics line for a major company. Unwanted by her mother because of her dark skin, Bride turns the tables, so to speak, using her dark skin as a shield and as a brand in the corporate world. A seemingly vapid character, Bride knows that she is beautiful and spends much of her time considering this fact -- worrying over it so much so, and being willfully ignorant of the world around her -- that parts of her beautiful body begin to disappear as though they were never there in the first place. Her lover, Booker, leaves her without reason. Her best friend, Brooklyn, stabs her in the back, and she ends up going on a spur-of-the-moment adventure to locate Booker, and find -- what? She doesn't really know, and neither do we.

There is an obvious surface story here, but underneath that Morrison takes on the themes of race, beauty, exploitation, rape, incarceration, child molestation, hatred, fear, the confusing nature of love, and the hardships of child rearing. Heavy stuff! But her handling of this subject matter is superbly nuanced while still being clearly present. I suggest reading it all in one go -- at 178 pages that is certainly doable. And then, go back and read it again, more leisurely this time.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is following current events in our world -- at all. Also, anyone who enjoys reading writers at the top of their linguistic game -- this book is for you. Morrison's prose are succinct and beautiful. No word is wasted; no extra words are needed. Superb. Have I said that yet? Superb.

Toni Morrison's GOD HELP THE CHILD is a searing commentary on how parents treat children and the effects of childhood trauma that may never go away. The story begins with the birth of a little girl who is "so black she scared [her mother]. Midnight black, Sudanese black. I'm light skinned, with good hair, what we call high yellow, and so is Lula Ann's father." The child is immediately rejected by her mother, who can't bear to touch her.

As Lula Ann tries to get attention, she tells a terrible lie about a teacher at her school. She accuses the woman of touching kids, which leads to a 10-year prison sentence. When Lula Ann gets older, she leaves town and becomes an entrepreneur for a makeup company. One of her colleagues guides her into a style of wearing white most of the time, and she looks stunning. She changes her name to Bride and meets a man with whom she falls in love: Booker. He, too, carries a burden on his soul: his brother was molested and murdered, and he can't seem to move on with his life.

At the center of the book is Bride's dysfunctional relationship with her mother. She will do anything, even misbehave, just so that her mother will have to hit her so she can feel the older woman's hand. But this doesn't work because Sweetness finds other ways to punish Lula Ann, like locking her in a closet. These traumatic events do not deter Lula Ann from constantly seeking some kind of kinship with her mother. “What you do to children matters,” Morrison writes. “And they might never forget.”

When Bride goes to make some kind of peace with the woman whose life she stole, the old lady beats her up and throws her out of her motel room. Booker is furious with Bride for going to see her, and he abruptly leaves. She falls to pieces, using drugs, alcohol and sex to try to forget. Now out in California, she is involved in a car wreck and a kindly "hippie" couple takes her in. Nobody knows where she is. She stays with these people, as does a little girl they found in an alley in the rain; thus they name her Rain. Rain is a "lost child" because she ran away from her drunken mother, who was renting her out to men for money.She and Bride become very close.

Morrison shines a much-needed spotlight on the most vulnerable and helpless population in the world. She shifts her story from perspective to perspective but ultimately comes back to the core of the story: child abuse and neglect. Sweetness justifies her own abuse of Bride as a way of teaching her how to survive in the world. But the damage she inflicts stays with the child forever.

According to Morrison, “Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow --- some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite that story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin. What waste. She knew from personal experience how hard loving was, how selfish and how easily sundered. Withholding sex or relying on it, ignoring children or devouring them, rerouting true feelings or locking them out. Youth being the excuse for that fortune-cookie love --- until it wasn’t, until it became pure adult stupidity.”

GOD HELP THE CHILD is a homage to some of Morrison's very early work, like THE BLUEST EYE and SULA. There, too, little girls are treated like trash, much like Bride and Rain. The raw feelings in her latest effort will move any reader with its "propulsive energy" and realistic pain. Fans and newcomers alike will be forced to think about newspaper headlines screaming about abused children in a new light. The horror that these girls and boys suffer will feel more real after reading this masterpiece of a novel.

Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.

Morrison's latest novel is set in present day and is one of her shorter works at 178 pages with alternating points of view whose central theme is that the damage inflicted on a child has lifetime repercussions and consequences. The first lines of the novel, uttered by Sweetness are, "It's not my fault. So you can't blame me. I didn't do it and have no idea how it happened." Sweetness is referring to the birth of her daughter, Lula Ann, whom she describes as "so black she scared me. Midnight black, Sudanese black." Sweetness refers to her own coloring as high yellow and she tells the reader, "I'm light-skinned, with good hair, what we call high yellow, and so is Lula Ann's father." Sweetness is repulsed by the sight of her own daughter and Lula Ann's father leaves because he believes she is not his child. Sweetness thinks about putting Lula Ann in an orphanage. Sweetness argues that the lighter the black skin, the better. She states, "How else can you avoid being spit on in a drugstore" and because her mother was

light-skinned, "she wasn't stopped from trying on hats in the department stores or using their ladies' room." Sweetness avoids

touching her daugher, never attends parent- teacher meetings or volleyball games and tell us, "I couldn't see past all that black to

know who she was and just plain lover her." When Lula Ann is six years old, she sees the white landlord sexually molesting a white child, but Sweetness tells her to be quiet because she does not want to be evicted.

The turning point of the novel occurs when at eight years old, Lula Ann testifies against a teacher who is being accused of sexually molesting children. It was the one moment that Sweetness was proud of her daughter and she actually holds Lula's hand for the first time. When Lula Ann is 16, she changes her "dumb countrified name" from Lula Ann Bridewell to Bride and she later becomes a

stunningly beautiful and successful career woman in the cosmetics industry. Bride later tells the reader of her mother, "I used to pray she would slap my face or spank me just to feel her touch." This incident later shapes Bride's life in important ways.

The novel involves Bride's relationship with Booker Starbern, whose is also haunted by his childhood and this shapes him in haunting and important ways as well. At one point, Booker leaves Bride, who is now a stunningly beautiful and successful woman.

He simply tells her, "You not the woman."

The novel takes on a fairy-tale, magical realist quality as Bride searches for Booker and stays with a family who takes her in and cares for her after a car accident. Bride bonds with an adopted child named Rain, and Bride's body is changing before her eyes as she literally sheds her adult attributes and regresses to her physical childhood self, although no one but her notices. Bride must confront her childhood abuse before she can transition into a more emotionally healthy adult. Success and beauty are not enough.

Because this novel is written by Toni Morrison, I recommend it, but I would also highly recommend that if you have not read some of her other works, you should not judge her by this one. Toni Morrison is one of the most brilliant, living American writers, and her novels, such as Song of Solomon and Beloved are and will remain American masterpieces. This novel does not rise to that stratospheric level of greatness, but I am not at all sorry that I read it.

The second chapter of the novel is narrated by Lula Ann, now an adult who at 16 changed her "dumb countrified name from Lula Ann Bridewell to Bride. She resides in California and is a successful regional manager for a cosmetics company.

Short and intense book where different character are handled in a wonderful was by Tony Morrison. Not one word is too much, and the sentences go right to the target. I haven't read this author for a while and now I understand is better if I go back a read something of her previous work, because there is more than Beloved.

Un libro breve ed intenso in cui l'autrice riesce a far muovere i personaggi in un modo armonico e dove le frasi vanno dritte al punto e non c'é una parola di troppo. Era da tempo che non leggevo Tony Morrison ma devo assolutamente colmare questa mia lacuna perché mi sembra piuttosto chiaro che c'é molto di piú di Beloved tra i suoi scritti.

I have long suspected that Toni Morrison's novels can be paired, each one offering a different insight into a familiar (often harrowing) situation. Her latest book, God Help the Child (New York: Knopf, 2015) is no exception. Indeed, it makes a splendid companion to her first publication The Bluest Eye, as both stories focus on the aftereffects of childhood trauma, using a variety of narrative devices and a sprinkling of magical realism.

The Bluest Eye (1970) shows a young black girl's descent into madness as a result of her ethnic inferiority complex and her father's sexual abuse. Pecola is destroyed by her circumstances. In God Help the Child, however, the blue-black Bride is rejected by her high-yellow parents, and harshly treated by a mother trying to prepare her for the skin privileges in racist America. But instead of being crushed, Bride not only survives with great dignity, she turns her blackness into a hot commodity and becomes a successful cosmetics mogul.

But Bride feels guilty about a lie she told as an eight-year-old child that sent an innocent woman to jail. When the woman is released she tries to make amends, and at that point her carefully-shaped life begins to melt away. She confesses her perjury to her lover, a jazz musician called Booker, who promptly declares, "You not the woman I want"(8). This sends Bride into a form of arrested development where her body slowly shrinks back to its childhood state, still craving forgiveness and acceptance. And only when she has gone on a quest -- been reunited with Booker -- and he cries, "I love you! Love you!"(164) does she start to become whole again.

Bride has "something witchy" about her eyes (6), a clue to the fact this is a modern fairy tale. Like The Ugly Duckling, she grows from being a unattractive reject into a stunning success, and the dark child who lied and ruined an innocent life transforms into a beautiful goddess from the warmth of human love.

Like all of Morrison's books, God Help the Child is full of poetic language, though in this sparse novella there is transcendence and a positive resolution. While not as complex as Paradise, or as poignant as Beloved, I enjoyed the story and the resilience it portrays. Childhood trauma warps and shapes the adult life - but it can be overcome!

Pure magic.

God Help the Children is Toni Morrison's latest novel and her first set in contemporary time. The story moves between 1st And 3rd person narratives even for the same characters and on a re-read I'll analyze that further. It stands to Morrison's talent that it wasn't something that stood out - it was only on looking back for the review that I realized that sometime Bride - the protagonist- was told in 1st, then in other parts 3rd.

The language is typical Morrison - sparse but powerfully descriptive - a dichotomy that has always been part of what I love about her writing. The characters, despite the limited space for development, are fully realized. Their stories are hard, and there is a common thread from the past that connects them, and there is a painful emotional distance that drives choices throughout.

Overall, an excellent read with my only real complaint is that I wanted more time with the characters. This latest Morrison novel is not as dark as some of her other ones, but it tackles typical themes of loss and the impact of adults in someone's youth on the adults one becomes.

I'm sure, like all of my experiences with Morrison's novels, I'll discover more in subsequent readings, which is yet another reason to enjoy her brilliance.

It's difficult to compete with Toni Morrison's best writing--that list is long and the best American writing in the past 50 years. Her more recent books have books have been outstanding--A MERCY--and a bit scattered--HOME. She is still a writer than this reader looks forward to reading (and rereading). When an excerpt from GOD HELP THE CHILD was published in the NEW YORKER, I was so looking forward to her newest work, and I'm glad (as I tend to do) that I read it slowly soon after it was published. It did take me a while to get use to Morrison's mythologies in a contemporary setting, but her insights into the human condition are always a pay off. It's difficult to imagine spending a reading life without her novels.

I had some difficult with the store's reductive question, "How would you describe the plot of this book? Predictable/Some twists/Full of surprises." Plot is the only one reason to read Morrison. Equally important is her rhythm of language, her tone, her mythic style of looking at serious matters. Here she refocuses her keen eye on matters of race, justice, family, and relationships that brings the reader into a different space, a world in which those ideas are the most important. And for that, I say thank you Toni Morrison and recommend the book to anyone who is curious enough to consider American values today.

_The Bluest Eye_ was brilliant-- one of the best books I'd ever read. I've tried _Beloved_ and didn't like it. I did, however, like _Home_. So, ToMo isn't always my favorite and the ones I like aren't necessarily the ones that are loved by ToMo fans. I have to say, though, I really thought this book could have been great. It has some interesting themes (not new ones to ToMo, but still the idea she has here is so filled with potential that I was to page 125 of 178 before I began to realize the book was the victim of some poor choices.

There are things in this novel that simply don't make sense. There are chapters by characters who really don't need to have a voice in this narrative and what they add doesn't really advance the plot or our understanding of the main characters. There are examples of heavy handedness which, frankly, are cringe worthy. The aunt named Queen Olive who has a tuft of red hair on top of her head so she looks like, yes, you got it, a queen olive. Mind you, ToMo doesn't ever say Queen Olive has a red top just like the Olive she shares her name with-- it's just a thing she's done and it's up to you, reader, to put that together. And the second you do, you sort of groan.

There are plenty of examples of plot points unneeded, characters who make no sense, wooden dialogue. It's just not a good book from my perspective. I know lots of folks loved it. I hoped I would love it, but I really saw all the fingerprints on this one. It's like one of those women who from a distance seems like she's going to be gorgeous and then you get close and realize that she's mostly pancake makeup and face paint. This book could have been great but instead it's just artifice.

Poignant, precise writing. What else could be expected of Morrison's latest novel. Having fallen immediately in love with the Author after having read 'Love' and 'The Bluest Eye', I knew that I was in for an emotional journey. The Author pulls you into the interwoven lives of each character by employing a sympathizing mechanism. I felt sorrow and sadness for Bride, the child of a single mother who withheld affection for fear it would lessen her daughter's chance of survival as a deeply hued black girl in an unforgiving world. I felt sorrow and sadness for Booker, one of many siblings from a dual parent household where love was overflowing... But when tragedy strikes for one and success an opportunity for the other and their paths cross, well let's just say, two lives will never be the same!

The reoccurring theme is loss. Loss of a more tender relationship between mother and daughter. Loss of a deepened, more secure sense of self. Loss of loved ones young and old. The loss of freedom. The loss or lack thereof of any semblance of normal direction. Do we stay in the past, be content with the present or make the best of the future? The read is fast paced. I drew out my sitting to three days because I didn't want the tale to end.

Not only is Toni Morrison one of our greatest American writers, she is also one of the most fearless. No greater chasm divides the United States than the issue of race and it has always been this way since the founding of the country. In this book, the heroine, called Bride, is rejected and spurned by her mother (ironically names Sweetness) and father because she is not a light skinned black. But like Billie Holiday’s song //God Bless the Child//, Bride does come into her own. Others can see her stunning beauty. She learns to come into her own by stressing her uniqueness and talent. But the question remains can anyone truly love Bride? And the bigger question, can the rejected child inside of Bride love herself or anyone else? Much has been written about self loathing that many minorities end up feeling due to the rejection of society. It takes a great writer to spin a story that does not lecture, but leads us to understand that the greater force of society has to be love. Bride meets Booker and is rejected by him. But the roots for both of these lovers are deeper than the single action of rejection. This is a good story with great social relevance. Morrison achieves stories about the great divide that is race relations and we can learn to heal through her powerful writing.

Let me preface my review by saying that, while I am familiar with who Toni Morrison is, I've never read one of her books - until now. 'God Help the Child' is a short novel (less than 200 pages) which describes the story of Bride, a black woman who is the child of very light-skinned black parents. It talks about Bride's childhood, her relationship with her mother, and her relationship with a boyfriend, Booker, who eventually gets her pregnant. It is somewhat of a dark novel, very somber, with deep themes of child abuse and poor body image and dysfunctional relationships. Morrison's descriptions are very vivid and as you read it you can feel the characters as if you know them.

So why did I give it only 3 stars? Well, it's a short novel which doesn't flow well together (at least in my opinion). Some of the characters, while they add some depth to the story, really didn't have to be there. For example the entire section with the family in the woods and the child named Rain didn't seem to have a place in the novel except to be the place where Bride recuperated after her accident. I guess Morrison ties them together by talking about how Rain was abused and this is supposed to link all the major characters, but I often felt that this family's presence in the novel was not necessary. The same could be said for Bride's friend Brooklyn.

While there was definitely character development, the short nature of the novel limits how much occurred. With as many deep themes as this book had, I think that additional character development would have been appropriate.

Finally, there is only one main surprise climax (I won't spoil what that is) and once you've heard what it is, you really don't care any more (or at least I didn't).

Perhaps this is just the way that Morrison writes in all of her novels (I wouldn't know), but 'God Help the Child' was not sufficiently long enough; didn't go deep enough into the characters; and was somewhat disjointed. Overall, I would say it was a good book and worth the read, but I couldn't say that this one was great.

Maybe the next novel by Toni Morrison I read will be better.

This novel purports itself as being Toni Morrison’s first novel set in our present moment. Well, then I think it’s safe to say based on the work that she doesn’t think too much of the present. There’s a damning feeling that runs throughout this entire novel where it feels like every single character is pretty much just prescribed to awful lives. Even the few (and I mean few) moments where there is some moment of light to be found it’s run down by the barrel of negativity that I think Morrison regards the present with. Let that be my first warning. This is good reading, but it’s not the book you want to pick up if you want some affirmation of how life is worth dealing with.

I say that because there is not a single character in this novel who isn’t lowdown and shameful. All of these people (with the exception of one) seem to be awful people. Morrison shines in explaining what has driven each of these people to their flaws and how it makes them conflict with the world around them. In fact, she does it beautifully and even with a bit of fantasy thrown in the mix to send the message home. But make no mistake, these aren’t the kind of people you would want to form any lasting relationships with.

This novel is full of deeper themes and context. But other reviewers have probably done that better analyzations of that than I could months ago. So I’m not going to go that route because there’s no need to embarrass myself. I’m going to zoom in on these characters and how each of them are people I just can’t have in my life in 2015.

Bride is the girl that’s good for the party. You take her around because she’s pretty, makes you look better by osmosis and can probably get you into all the best parties. You don’t get close to a person like Bride. Why? Because she doesn’t love herself and people that don’t love themselves will always find a way to spread that into your life. It’s a sad thing because Bride, like so many other young black women out there, is dealing with the effects of a lifetime of colorism. She’s dark-skinned and only found some marginal acceptance of that when it made her exotic in an industry hell bent on normally labeling women like her as ugly. The fact she refuses to wear anything but white is nothing but the brutal effects of colorism at work.

So no, you don’t form any deep bond with a woman like Bride. Maybe you can if you’re coming at it from the perspective of trying to teach her something. But when you love yourself it can be a draining experience to have to constantly deal with someone like Bride. She’s the person you try and help from a distance. This young woman is the definition of the Bag Lady that Erkyah Badu was trying to tell us all about. Hang around her too long and you’ll start tripping on her luggage.

Booker is that man you want to take home and probably bang the hell out of on a consistent basis. He’s tall, muscular, smart and can put it down. I mean s*** at first glance why wouldn’t you want to snag this guy up? On the surface, he seems like he’s got it all, but once he spends a few days listlessly at your apartment you realize he ain’t s***. But you keep making excuses for the fact he ain’t s***. Because you remember the sex. And you remember how long it’s been since the last time you encountered a guy as real as him because even though he ain’t s*** there’s something genuine about it. He’ll say things that are so insightful and he’s willing to challenge you in a way no else does. That kind of word play bores its way into you and it’s hard to break that connection once made.

But ultimately those brains are an excuse. They’re a reason for him not to achieve and do better for himself because he looks at the bigger picture and doesn’t possibly see how his living changes anything. Those brains give him a reason to run. Make no mistake, a man like Booker will always run because even when they find something good, they’re going to look for their reason to run like Republicans look for a reason to hate the President. Yes, it’s that serious and that relentless. He just runs. This is not the man you decide to have a relationship with. Guys lie Booker keep their lovers from having a good relationship after them for a very long time.

Brooklyn is that triflin ass friend we all have had in our lives and for the longest time you believed they had your back. All the best advice and support seemed to come from them. You felt like you could talk to them honestly and just be open about anything. But like the snake they are, they were just waiting until you took that one misstep that let them sink their fangs in. And in this moment of weakness, you’re dealing with so many other things you don’t even realize you’ve been bitten. That’s the kind of person Brooklyn is.

I can’t help but to wonder to if this is somewhat of a statement from Morrison about the precarious nature of interracial friendships. There has always existed a bit of wisdom from older black people warning that getting too comfortable around white people (even friends) is something that can put you in danger. Sadly, there are elements of that wisdom which still have some application in today’s society. But I think Morrison, being older, might be coming at it from a more archaic viewpoint. Or that could just be my optimism making excuses…

Sweetness is that sorry ass old person you can’t stand, but you know you have to respect anyway because they’re old. There’s one person in particular I can think of. I know that so much of their life has been spent being hateful and mean-spirited. Breaking up the marriages of their sons and trying just as hard to break up the remaining ones. Always finding a way to demean and create conflict. Someone who should be operating as a matriarch, but instead is the cause of all her families’ strife. Ok so I just had a going in moment. Sweetness isn’t that bad, but she’s still pretty awful for rejecting her child for being too dark skinned. Its lucky Bride isn’t more unstable with a parent like Sweetness.

This novel is pretty much a guide on people you need to stay away from. Take note of the symptoms of each character as you read the book. Keep those notes close and if people in your life seem to fit into these molds then you might need to do some reevaluating. Take the road of Booker and run!

You can find more of my reviews at: rrapmagazine.wordpress.com

This book is another insightful Toni Morrison masterpiece. From the beginning, the reader is entranced by the narrative. The novel is a symphony, a poem and a thesis wrapped in one. It is a book about lives-young lives-and the painful history behind them. It is about dislocation, torment, and mending-about endings and beginnings. Once gain the terrain of Professor Morrison’s story is strewn with the bodies of children.

God Help The Child, is about two young beings wading through the swamp of their childhood misadventures. Lula Ann Bridewell, the main protagonist, was an unlovable child to her mother, Sweetness, because of how dark she was. Midnight Black, Sudanese Black, is how the mother saw her. Sweetness was so enraged at her daughter’s color that once she held a blanket over her face and pressed. She even thought of giving her away to an orphanage.

Sweetness’s obsession with color was brought about by the world around her. In it, color gave one respect, priviledge and bestowed a decent life. The darker one's skin, the grimmer and bleaker the canvas of one’s life. Their color is like an affliction they have to suffer and humiliation stalks them like an implacable enemy.

Even Lula Ann’s father, Louis, could not bring himself to love his Tar black child. He never even touched her. “We had three good years,” Sweetness tells us, “but when she was born, he blamed me and treated Lula Ann like she was a stranger, more than that, an enemy.” When his wife told Louis that the child’s blackness must be from his side of the family, he left.

But, Lula Ann Bride grew up to be a beautiful woman and a senior executive at a cosmetics company. Toni Morrison gives us a heroine who attains beauty and success in spite of her appearance (in the same way the author did in her field). Her complexion, the source of her parents’ shame, was the foundation of her success.

The kindest meaning of her name Lula is the Arabic definition which means a pearl. And what a beautiful gem she became, with beauty that turned heads wherever she went. She recovers her life by shedding her name-she jettisons the Lula Ann, and only becomes Bride.
Years later her boyfriend, Booker-another victim of a tormented childhood, walks out on her. An old wound was cut open. She had consummately dealt with her family’ rejection, but Booker’s flight from her life almost drove her mad.

Like the jilted Florentina Ariza in Marquez’s Love in the time of Cholera, she embarks on random relationships. Bride eventually sets out to find Booker in a pilgrimage that takes her to the woods of northern California. The reader never quite knows where reality ends and fantasy begins in Bride’s travels. Her body is changing in ways only she can see, shrinking and becoming hairless as if she is regressing back to girlhood.

Booker doesn’t fare well in his life. The loss and pain of his childhood continue to stalk him. In rejecting Bride, he is escaping from the demons that drove him away from home. As in Songs of Solomon, escape is a major theme in the book. Perhaps this is flight, not the geographical type as the author states, but flight from the wounding of their childhood-an odyssey of the soul.

The book has a beautiful end with the two lovers surrendering to each other-not without Bride breaking a bottle on Booker’s head. One wonders as they sail away if the two young lovers will indeed find the happiness that had eluded them all their lives. At the end of the Marquez’s Love in the time of Cholera, as the boat reaches its final destination, Fermina Daza sees people she knows and understandably seeks to avoid them. One hopes that Morrison’s maimed lovers will not cling to their past hurt and sorrow, or rewrite the old painful themes of their lives. One hopes that the presence of one in the other’s life will cause them to find joy, and release them from the choke hold of childhood misery.

There are ancillary characters that help move the story along and even give it strength. There is Sofia Huxley, the white teacher that Bride as a schoolgirl accused of molestation. There is Brooklyn, her assistant, and friend, also reeling from the travails of a difficult childhood. But, at the very heart of the story is Lula Ann Bridewell-the little hurt black girl who made good.

God Help the Child is a magnificent achievement by Toni Morrison. It is a compelling narrative that elegantly delves beyond superficial emotions and deftly describes the horror that adults wreak on children. It’s about their struggles, conflicts, and in the God Help the Child, their survival.

This novel is an incredible celebration of literature- a gem that will be read and re-read for many years. Professor Toni Morrison has to be one of the most important writers of the last century.

I fell in love with this book right away! From the first sentence, the poetic and human storytelling grabs your attention and places you right into the world of what’s going on and the mind of who’s telling it. It’s the kind of story that I long for… one that gets to the heart of the characters, even if they are detestable, heart wrenching or just plain everyday folks. Of course it helps that the author reads the book herself, with the gift of oral delivery that God has given her.

From the beginning, I became fascinated with the developing plot. Even though there were some points you could figure out, you savor each word to see how Morrison will flush those points out and what the consequences will be.

This book has to do with the main character’s experiences with race and parenting issues, survival, lies and the consequences from those lies, denials, potential sexual abuse, and the relationships she latches onto because of these experiences.

Considering all of these issues, the book ended more positively than I thought it would.

It has a beautiful cover of a black woman in a pristine white dress and I was all set to enjoy my first ever Toni Morrison book. Something terrible happened instead. A few pages in, I was already feeling uncomfortable in the knowledge that I did not like the book at all. At times like this, I often start wondering about my lack of a classical English Literature college level education and whether I would appreciate such works better if I had been taught to look for symbolism and sentence construction. Is it possible that I don't understand the 'moral' of the story at all? Am I just too practical and insensitive to appreciate the truth about human nature?

Whatever may be the reason, in the spirit of honesty, I declare that I thought this book was 'meh'.

SPOLIERS AHEAD

The story is told through the points of view of the various protagonists in the story. The one on the cover and the heroine of the story is a girl named Bride, who is a successful executive in a cosmetics company and grew up looking for a cold mother's loving approval. She loves Booker, who was her boyfriend but who left her one day after some little disagreement. She eventually tracks him down but that comes later. She has a dear friend called Brooklyn, who is always there to lend a shoulder but is not without the foresight to look out for her own interests. And then there is Sweetness, Bride's mother, who is actually the strongest and most street smart woman of the bunch, even if she is the sort-of villain of the piece.

Sweetness is a black woman who may pass for white and was the daughter of another black woman who actually did. As fate would have it, she bore a daughter who was dark skinned. Sweetness grew up in a time and society where the colour of your skin was all that people looked for before judging you. Add to that the fact that you are a woman and you are effectively holding all the wrong cards for tackling the game of life. She is always so hung up on the things that can go wrong for herself and her daughter that she forgets to enjoy the love that the little person can give her. As it is, I felt that she managed to protect her daughter a bit too much and ended up making her too naive for this world instead of tough and thick-skinned as she had intended.

As for Bride, I am sorry but I thought she was an exceptionally stupid woman and I know exactly who she reminded me of. When I was a 14 year old, we had a girl in our after school group who was 2 years older to us. One evening she comes up to us and says we must go back to the bridge we were cycling on the precious evening. With nothing better to do we all trooped off and only when we reached there did she inform us that she was looking for a 100/- rupee note that she had dropped there 24 hours earlier. Even as I stared at her in open-mouthed amazement, my other friends declared that she was so 'innocent' and 'cute'. Bride is portrayed in much the same light in this book while I once again shake my head in disbelief.

As soon as one is introduced to her, she is on a mission of mercy. She has saved up a lot of cash and is taking it in her flashy car and while dressed up to the nines to a woman who is about to be released from prison after serving 15 years. 'How sweet' one muses, until it is revealed that it was Bride's false testimony that put her behind bars. Making amends is never an easy job, and these circumstances would have called for a more than usual level of finesse. The encounter that follows is short, swift and excruciatingly painful for Bride.

Throughout the book, Bride manages to keep getting physically hurt over and over again. And that too more seriously that the last time. She is an absolute train wreck and try as I might I fail to empathize with her even a little bit.

Another disturbing aspect was the amount of child sexual abuse going on in the book. If the characters had not been abused themselves as children, they had witnessed or known someone who had been a victim. As sad as it is, the idea that any stranger you meet in America will have personal knowledge of child sexual abuse is disconcerting and feels like overkill managing to detract instead of adding meaning to the message the author is trying to convey. There is something to be said for subtlety.

The irony of Bride and Booker abandoning their own parents because they felt they did not love/understand them enough only to love an old woman who had abandoned her own numerous children all over the world when she had had enough is not lost on the reader. It is a very clever plot twist and made me acknowledge the truth of the author's renowned abilities even if it happened too late in the story.

The most poignant chapter in the book for me though was the last one, where Sweetness muses over Bride's news and makes a scathingly accurate observation and manages to beautifully justify the title of the book.

I picked up this book and am so glad I did. Toni Morrison's writing is mesmerizing which I knew from Beloved, but this book is more accessible in many ways than the modern classic. I loved Beloved but understood the complexities of the childhood trauma which affects the main characters in this book. Bride is admirable in her superficiality, to have capitalized on an asset her mother despised was brilliant in my view. I gave it four stars only because I thought that Rain's character could have been a bigger part of the story. I would have liked to have a bit more from her, as well as from Brooklyn. In some ways the story is a coming of age story for Bride and Booker. They are young, and are figuring out the world and how the people don't always live up to expectations. I enjoyed this insight into various people and backgrounds. It's a sometimes difficult book to read with the child molestation running through it so don't read it if those themes bother you.

This is a very slender volume, but like she did with her last book, Home she packs a punch, although the book comes in at 179 pages the story is rich and loaded. Toni always manages to say so much while being sparse with words, that is quite an art and no doubt accounts for her status in the literary world. I thought the first part of the book was fire. In about 70 pages we go from the birth of Lula Ann, born "Midnight black. Sudanese black." She was shunned by her light skinned mother and her light skinned father walks out shortly after the birth, failing to grasp how two light completed folks could produce such a dark child.

As an adult, Bride-she changed her name-becomes quite successful in the cosmetics business, comfortable in her skin and her life. In quick succession we meet her friend Brooklyn, learn a little of her partner Booker and ultimately accused child molesting teacher, Sofia. Toni manages to make this full first part feel unhurried, yet fully nourished, in fact you will be pressing forward to see how this all plays out.

The mother doesn't want to be called mother, mama or anything that would indicate publicly she is the child 's mother. "It was safer." So, mama becomes Sweetness, and this first section is all written in first person from mostly Bride's perspective very effectively. We get to hear directly from Bride, regarding the pain her mother caused her, surrounding color. It's like she is talking directly to the readers. "I always knew she didn't like touching me. I could tell....I used to pray she would slap my face or spank me just to feel her touch."

Bride carries a secret with her into adulthood, which is easy to discern by her actions, and perceptive reading. As an adult she is revered for her black beauty, often leaving men and women alike to openly gasp about her glamour. She meets a guy named Booker and they seem to have an ok relationship, she shares mostly everything with him, and one day he says, "You not the woman I want." Thus begins her journey to why. Not so much why I'm not that woman, but why did he just up and go. After the first part, Toni shifts to writing in the third person and it makes the middle part of the book sag and drag a little bit.

The novel moves around in time, so the structure is not linear, which works fine and as we enter the last part of the book, the fire returns, and all the sagging is left in the pages past. Bride is determined to have this "why" conversation with Booker, so she tracks down his whereabouts through a pawn ticket receipt and proceeds to make the drive to confront Booker. We learn Booker has some childhood issues of his own, that definitely led to his disappearance and has somewhat stifled his potential.

After spending some time laid up, with a couple and their "stolen" daughter due to a car accident, she and Booker finally have the conversation they should have had months earlier. The importance of communication is paramount, especially in relationships that are attached to meaning. The prose is delectable, as is usual with Toni and only the drag midway keeps this from being 5 stars.

I've been trying to read some of Toni Morrison's books for some time now. I've started and not finished multiple books. I thought this one might work for me.

It is beautifully written, and Ms. Morrison is a great author, but her work just isn't for me. This book is so full of despair, so bitter and judgmental. Skin color is more important than soul. There is, of course, child abuse. As with her other works I've tried, this one is rather strange.

I did find it odd that someone injured in a car wreck would stay with total strangers for weeks on end, never finding a better solution.

This unabridged audio book was wonderfully read by the author. But it is just too dark for me.

Please, please, please if youve never read a Morrison novel do NOT start with this one.
Pick Song of Solomon, Beloved, Paradise, Sula....before reading this novel.
Its good dont get me wrong but its shallow, easy, quick and pale in comparison to so many of her other works.
Morrison is a brilliant, complex and genius author that will change the core of how you view the world. But this book just isnt an example of any of that to me.
I found it interesting. I poured through it in a few hours. However with exception of Tar Baby I never read a Morrison novel in a few hours.
If you want an easy read, a superficial taste of who Morrison is as an author this book will provide however, you will be sorely robbed of who she is at her best (which is almost always)
And when you do get to reading another novel (refer back to suggested list) you wont know what hit you(:

The devilish dichotomy of skin color in the African American community is dealt with within these pages. Morrison so beautifully illustrates with her words so much truth in regards to this. She reminds us that family can be the determining factor in so many decisions that we make in life- good and bad. Bride, our undeniably beautiful ebony skinned heroine is rejected by her parents at birth due to her dark skintone. Her mother, Sweetness raises her but denies Bride a mother's touch. Comfortable in her skin as an adult, Bride is succeeding in many arenas but struggling with the love and friendships in her life. I read this book one sitting. Toni Morrison's writing reminds me of sitting in my grandmother's bedroom and listening to my grandmother and my aunts talking, and howling with laughter. It reads like prose.

I finished only one of Toni Morrison's previous novels (Beloved) and wasn't nearly as taken with it as many people have been, and I didn't get far into Jazz before concluding I wasn't very interested. But I felt I must be missing something, and at least wanted to give another chance to someone who is one of the most celebrated writers of our time. I'm glad I did. As soon as I started God Help the Child I was riveted by Morrison's style, which is very direct and economical, and moves along without wasting a single word--and as the story progresses, moves with even more speed and assurance. Within two pages I said to myself, wow, she can write--and yes, I do realize I'm not the first person to conclude that.

The plot focuses on Bride, a woman who has suffered trauma in her childhood in part due to her very dark complexion, and Booker, her boyfriend, who also has had a troubled family life, so the theme that our early experiences can leave deep scars and how we deal with them runs throughout. Morrison does a wonderful job of fleshing out the characters and revealing the way they think and feel. It's a generally dark tale--most of the characters struggle--but not unrealistically so; although the story takes on an almost mythical or surreal quality, these are definitely real people who are easy to relate to for anyone who has suffered in life.

Although the novel is slim--about 200 pages--and goes quickly, it packs a punch and is well worth reading. It opened my eyes to Morrison's immense talent.

This book was a great example of symbolic literature. Morrison gave a clear view to readers that the way we raise our children effects the rest of their lives. Lula ann's parents had such a deep hatred of her "blue, black skin" that I immediately felt connected to her. I thought it was genious how the author gives people a view on the way some people parent their childen. there were moments in the book where I felt like I was peeping through a window watching this family

what I didn't like was that too many characters were being introduced so fast that I felt rushed to keep up with the story and at times I was confused with what characters were talking. the story jumped around a lot as well which made me read several parts over again just so I could understand

Once again I am reminded of the brilliance of Toni's writing. She can construct a sentence like no other. I often find, while reading the books she has written, that I digest sentence like gourmet food in order to detect the most subtle of flavors. That being said, I like the modern feel to this novel as well as it's simplicity. (this is definitely easier to read than some of her more widely acclaimed books) Novels don't have to be difficult to read to deliver a powerful message. It is an interesting study on relationships and forgiveness and the power of tragedy. It is a reflection on parenting and the ability we all have as people to harm or help with our love, or lack there of. Anyone who doesn't question their wisdom or method of parenting is ignorant at best. God help the child, is something we should all be reciting before embarking on parenthood. Again it s a beautifully crafted and lyrical study of familial relationships and how they shape our lives and loves.

Whatever else I thought or felt about this book, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what I thought or felt about it. I'm afraid that ultimately, though, I can't recommend it as heartily as I would like.

Much of the writing is very well done, as one would expect from Morrison, and I was moved to read it in two sittings (but it is a very short book). The first section of the book is in rotating first person, with each chapter narrated by a different character than the one before, and it was probably the least compelling to me from a writing standpoint. As the narration becomes more consistent, though, Morrison hit her stride in terms of tone and voice, and I began to find it more enjoyable.

The publisher's description of plot and theme is very accurate -- not a character in this book escaped some level of pretty extreme childhood trauma, and every single one struggles with intimacy, depression, or mental illness as a result. This is an interesting theme to explore, but it feels heavy-handed to make it so pervasive, and so debilitating to all.

But the real reason I can't recommend God Help the Child without reservation is that it feels like a draft, or even an outline, of a much more comprehensive and epic work. This could be a vast sweeping tale of interwoven lives, but instead felt to me like a series of disjointed polaroids -- and not in a postmodern deliberate sort of way. Some of it just didn't make sense given the modern setting, some of it seemed like an idea Morrison must have been holding on to and wanted to throw in just to get it out of her head, and some it just seemed flat out underdeveloped.

I would be interested to read the book it feels like this could have been, but as is, I found it unsatisfying. If you love Toni Morrison and want to read everything she writes, of course you should read this. But if you're just looking for something to read, I don't think it's worth the time -- short as it is.

I read her book the bluest eyes and I notice a theme about Morrison. she writes about color, color of the skin and racism but it's more of a reflection on the character.

I like that Morrison told the story from different perspectives of unique characters. Her use of child molestation throughout the book in the subtle hints and descriptive writing is very disturbing yet, you want to know more about the characters.
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I really liked how Morrison changed Bride from an ugly duckling to a white swan by the way she dressed talked and took charge of her life despite how her mother had disdain for her.

The overall moral of the story is how we as adults look for love and affection and beauty from others to make us better. But we must find the beauty within ourselves.

The title of the book "God help the child" is explained near the end of the novel where Sweetness muses over bride.

It's a seemingly dark tale, a lot is implied but you can still vision the characters in the story where it may seem to leave you hanging but it comes back around full-circle and then you understand what she is saying in her writing. The message of the book shown through clearly and it was beautifully written.

The fantasy portions were very important to the story line if you missed that, then you missed her overall message. Bride had to be re-born within herself to change and to see life differently which is what happened in the end.

Overall the book engaged me. This would make an excellent Book Club read and discussion. A Great Book!

Like so many people I’m in love with Morrison’s writing. What you’re about to read is biased. Morrison’s style has changed in her last three books or so. She’s gone from highly metaphorical to a more grounded, and some might say accessible, more mainstream, style*. I like both approaches. As always she writes about racism and how endemic it is and how grounded in economic reality it can be. She always writes about family emotional ties and how those ties can transcend blood and race yet can’t escape being tied in together.

The main character is the daughter of a light skinned woman who panics when her child is born ‘too dark’. In her mind she practices tough love in order to prepare Bride for the discrimination she’ll face in the world. This is a blessing and a curse because it causes Bride to become creative in order to achieve in her career and find love. Her name marks her as a blank slate in need of defining herself. She finds heartbreak as well as love and success. Ultimately, like most of us, she finds her place in the world and some happiness. Bride moves from the perpetually standing on the cusp of fulfilling her dreams and living in partnership with others into engaging life in earnest.

*I think “Mercy” is her last book in the older style.

I liked the way Morrison told the story from different perspectives. I always enjoy seeing how different characters view events differently and why. That aspect of the book was interesting and enjoyable to me. But what ruined my enjoyment was Morrison's strange obsession with child rape. Seriously, WHY is there so much of it in this book??? It's not even the main point of the book - the primary story is about how Bride tries to overcome her mother's rejection of her for her black skin by becoming glamorous and successful, but she still has hurt and insecurity inside. THAT story is interesting. Yet in this short book, there are no fewer than FOUR separate, totally unrelated incidents of child rape or molestation, only one of which is connected to the main story (as a child, Bride witnessed an act of child rape and testified in a case that put another person in jail for it). That one case was relevant to the story. But then, it's revealed that when another main character was a child, his brother was raped and murdered by a serial killer. And there's also a little girl who ran away from home because her prostitute mother used to let clients rape the girl for extra money. And even Bride's co-worker casually mentions in passing (as though it's no big deal) that her uncle used to molest her. I liked the book otherwise, but I felt like this CONSTANT inclusion of random, separate, unrelated acts of child rape marred it - it's as though Morrison thinks that 90% of children are molested, and it's a totally normal part of childhood and very rare when a child DOESN'T get raped. It's overkill, and definitely NOT necessary.

This is the FIRST book I read by Toni Morrison and I actually understood what in the world she was talking about. When I usually read her work I would get 75% in the book before I sort-of understood as to what she was talking about and who was telling me the story (ghost/live person). This is the easiest book I ever read by her. On the outside of that it's really a good book. I love Ms. Morrison's work. She has a lot of great books out there that's very challenging to read. Due to the fact that you don't always think you understand whom is talking to you or truly understand the story she is telling until you get to the end of the book. I love all of her work. This is a must read.

Not the high quality I expected, because of her other wonderful books, but an unusual contemporary story. Ms. Morrison explores Colorism, Intraracism, along with Self-determination, Family, Dysfunction, Love, and thank God, Optimism/Self-Empowerment. Becoming a Person. Briefly there is magical realism (or schizophrenia, if she were foolish enough to consult a shrink every time life deals a bad hand) -- when the protagonist's body begins to lose its definition. (Actually it is magical that "Bride" was born at all.) This novel is only 178 pages. Highly recommended food for thought, as expected, from one of America's treasured writers, Ms. Toni Morrison.

If you haven’t read anything by Toni Morrison, I will assume you are not curious. Though “God Help the Child” is an appropriate title for her 2015 release, Morrison could have named this modest tale, “Ordinary People”.
Through her vibrant but humble writing style, Morrison presents simple characters with enticing stories, like mine and yours. She delves into the reality of how pain affects all ages, detailing its persistence and insistence to be a part of one’s life, determined to mark its territory and even be memorialized in one’s mind.
Toni Morrison has a way with words that makes me hungry while I am eating. In “God Help the Child” Morrison serves a five-course meal one does not take home in a doggy bag. Consequently, had it not been for my life’s interruptions, I would have read this novel in one sitting.
Her language is descriptive, explicit, and lyrical. Morrison will not simply tell you that someone was put into an ambulance, or that the lovers made love. She takes time to stretch her vocabulary with innately detailed sentences that coerce the reader into the next paragraph by saying things like, “… the moaning patient being trundled into the ambulance.” Or, “… holding hands in the park in anticipation of the sexual choreography they would perform”. I was captivated by minding somebody else’s business for a while. However, the author’s name typeset on ever other page, jolted me from my daydream of sneakily reading the diary of a lost little girl and her character of disruptions.
Throughout “God Help the Child” I am reminded of my ancestors’ dark history of martyrdom, sacrifice and timeless endurance. Yet, Morrison keeps me in time with my own life experiences, while sharing whispers of the secret tragedies my children have suffered and triumphed. Morrison writes for, to, and through generations.

As a lifelong reader and admirer of Toni Morrison's work God Help the Child seems underdeveloped. Her usually immersive world feels incomplete here. The story feels short and rushed. Upon completing the book I felt like there was still much to be known about these characters. Although this book lacked the usual excellence of Ms Morrison's work her longtime readers will still want to check this one out. Newcomers her work should begin with one of her older pieces.

I was quite struck by this short novel by Morrison. Of course, it's Morrison. But her story revolves around the life - from birth to adulthood - of an African-American girl born with darker skin than her mother. Okay, I have to say right here and now that much of the subtlety Morrison is saying is probably going to pass right by me. So I've been making a point of reading as many essays and criticism of this novel as I can and re-read portions of the novel. As it stands after my first read, I thought it was a beautiful story even knowing there were messages I probably am not getting.

Bride (real name Lula Ann, but called Bride) was born to a lighter skinned mother called Sweetness) and father. Her father leaves fairly early in her life (that dark skin of Bride makes him question her true parentage), so from the get-go she is experiencing consequences of her skin color. As she grows into a woman, we see a myriad of other ways her darker skin color changes the trajectory of her life. Some good, some not. It certainly has a profound effect on her psyche.

Of course, there is much more to this novel than just skin color....and I'm still discovering more. There is Bride self-identity, how others see her, how she internalizes her childhood - mistakes and all - and how that turns into the adult she becomes. Many of these themes, of course, are not unique to one race but are universal to all humans. This is why I love Morrison. She can illuminate so much exclusive to African-Americans and still show us how these issues are universal in nature. This is why she is so important, in my opinion.

And so, like all Morrison novels, this copy of mine will become well-read, re-read, marked up, and dog-eared over time. These initial impressions I've written here will no doubt change as other people educate me with their thoughts and criticisms. Meanwhile, I recommend you read the book and find your meaning in it.

Edited: review written from notes in which I erroneously misidentified Bride's name. I was corrected - rightly so - in the comments section. Lesson: always have the book with you and never try to write a book review while laid out with the flu. Apologies to all and thank you to the reader who pointed out the grievous error.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed this one. I was actually glad that it was short. It left my mind in a wondering, hopeful stage about Bride and Booker. I appreciate Ms. Morrison's writing. Sometimes it feels like music to my ears the way she spits that prose. I've read most of Toni Morrison's books and I'm happy to add this to the collection. No spoilers here for those of you that haven't read God Help The Child...I give it two thumbs up because it did just what I wanted a book to do for me. It caught my attention, kept it, gave me the low down and ended with a smooth landing. Now has Toni Morrison ever did a sequel because I could use some more of Bride and Booker.

Though 'Beloved', and 'The Bluest Eye' are books of genius, I did not enjoy this book. The characters were trite and undeveloped. Booker was perhaps the character with the most depth and interest. Maybe I missed what she was going for, but I was sorry I wasted my money and time.

Sometimes we just want a novel to break our hearts. Toni Morrison’s wisdom and fine writing broke my heart as I read her latest novel titled, God Help the Child. Protagonist Bride was not loved as a child by her father and by her light-skinned mother because she was “too dark.” Morrison expresses passion and disappointment that we can be so foolish to let something unimportant like image lead to a denial of love. One of the most memorable phrases from the novel is that “what you do to children matters.” At fewer than two hundred pages, this novel can be read quickly, and should be of interest to many book clubs.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

I really expected so much more from this book. There's a very high standard for Ms. Morrison, because she has a true way with words. But this book wasn't it. Some parts of this book pulled me in, some parts I wanted to skip over. Despite the heavy subject matter, this book is super light -- so to speak. The beginning wasn't really a beginning and the end wasn't really as satisfying as I'd hope. Good luck, if you spend time reading this, and as Sweetness said, "God help the child"

Read the lines about how you treat children carefully in the first few pages, for they are words that come back to haunt the characters time after time. The storyline from various perspectives helps to create the important message of this book. You do not have to let the actions (or sins) or others or even your actions in the past force you into a life you don’t want. You have the power to create a life you want, even though it may not be one that has wealth or fame. As usual, Morrison’s characters are varied, realistic and thought-provoking. This is one of my most favorite Toni Morrison novels.

Although I am a fan of novels by Toni Morrison, this novel "God Help The Child" is not one of my favorites. The main character Bride is dealing with loving herself due to not getting the love she needed as a child from her mother. What I like about this novel is that it is very descriptive. My dislikes are that the book is all over the place and some of the chapters are from the point of views of of irrelevant characters, making the story seem a little cluttered.

This is a short novel by Toni Morrison about a girl, Lula Ann, or Bride; born more black than her mother had anticipated. Because of the darkness of her skin, Bride is largely rejected by her mother, leading to all kinds of problems down the road. Bride encounters a variety of individuals with colorful names as well who help show the importance of a mother's love. This book also has a bit of magical realism, which I was not expecting. To be honest, I got bogged down in the middle of this short book because I could not figure out where this story was going with this variety of characters. I need not have worried, for Ms. Morrison makes it all come together in the end, and it works out really well in ways that I could not have imagined. My first time reading a book by Toni Morrison; I'm looking forward to reading more of her works.

This is a complicated story of Lula Ann (Bride), her mother Lula Mae (Sweetness), her father Louis and a love story between Bride and Booker. This is a clever piece of writing by Toni Morrison who succeeded in taking the reader in little steps on the journey of Bride from childhood through to adulthood. In a society where colour counts, Bride a beautiful African-American girl was born by parents who pass as white with white privileges. The racial tension which this engendered lead to dislocation of the family. How does a child grow - up in a household where mother is ashamed of the colour of her child? And how does that child find love in a hostile environment? And then there is the incident with Sofia -Huxley, a school teacher who was jailed for child abuse. Sometimes people lie to gain credibility, love and acceptance. Yet in this atmosphere, Bride encounter a white couple Evelyn and Steve who saved her life. Finally Lula Ann is expecting a baby. Is history about to repeat? A well enjoyable book.

God Help the Child is a joy to read. The writing is beautiful, the characters interesting, and the descriptive details make the story feel real. Although the book is not without flaws, I rate it as five stars because I loved reading it and it is continuing to drift into my thoughts days after finishing. The main character, Bride, has built a successful career and created her own style of beauty from what she had always thought was her worst feature - her very dark black skin. Literally everyone in Bride's early life, from her mother forward, recoiled from her color and could see nothing else in her, but she has risen beyond those judgments. Then, when she is abruptly dumped by her boyfriend Booker and receives another blow from someone she knew as a child, she spirals back into childhood insecurity. To say much more about the plot would give away the unexpected turns of Bride's journey.

I mentioned flaws and I hate to quibble when a book is so lovely, but there are a few things readers might dislike. Although most of the story centers on Bride, various other viewpoint characters pop up seemingly out of the blue. Booker, a shadowy figure who exits Bride's life early in the book, suddenly shows up midway through as a viewpoint character. He comes across as a loafer who takes it easy at Bride's place while she works, and then he disappears when she needs support. Bride is devastated, but because we know so little about Booker, it is hard to tell if she has lost the love of her life or made a lucky escape. His chapter explains a little but doesn't resolve this question, although there is ultimately an answer by the end of the book. Other viewpoint characters also pop in occasionally and some of them drift back out without much resolution of their story lines. These secondary characters are very well developed and I found myself at the end of the book wondering how things turned out for them. Another quibble is the premise of Bride's skin color as so exceptional that literally no one looks past it. Was everyone so close-minded in the 1990's and 2000's? Finally, Bride experiences some strange phenomenon as she revisits her feelings of childhood insecurity. I was intrigued by this part of the story: were these happenings supernatural? was Bride delusional? what was really going on? These questions aren't answered and I would have liked some kind of explanation, even if it was only to find out how Bride explained these things to herself.

Despite these questions and quibbles, I loved reading this book. Considering the book is quite short, I was glad I was able to borrow a copy. I must admit I might not have been five-stars happy with it if I'd paid the cover price for such a brief book, no matter how lovely.

I have stayed away from Toni Morrison's latest novels because the story lines have gone over my head. God Help the Child, however, did not. Even though there were some strange happenings with Bride, the novel stayed on track and I enjoyed it. Bride (Lula Ann) has left her southern past behind her and starts a new life in the city as a make-up and beauty mogul. With her dark skin and all white attire, she truly fits the bill. Her journey into acceptance and understanding is an interesting one. At less than 200 pages, the book is a quick and entertaining read.

Morrison presents an interesting story in which issues-that still persist presently-are woven within each character's perspective and experience. I found it disturbing that the main character reverted back to a child's body, but this may have been Morrison's intent. I was intrigued that Bride's skin color was presented to the world in the manner in which Morrison described. Onto another written accomplishment by Morrison...

I liked this book. Well-written. The author is extremely talented and her books help me to see life through new eyes. Being white, I am limited in what I see, what I experience, what it's like to be judged and held down by color.

Bride experiences such pain, loss, and betrayal. She does not realize she has met her match in Booker. Neither character really knows what they are and why. Forced to find themselves before they can truly discover each other.

This novel was compact and powerful! This was our bookclub - October selection and a fantastic selection it was. As I understand this novel is no different from Ms Morrison's usual excellent work. I loved the plot, the story to a point I wanted to re read it. I highly recommend as I know anyone who reads it will enjoy. This is my first Toni Morrison book I have read from cover to cover and it was EXCELLENT!

I did not feel like I was reading a Toni Morrison book at all and that bothered me. It didn't seem like her usual writing. It was short and seemed rushed and had few of the amazingly written lines I've always loved Toni for. I didn't care for the characters or the story line. I understood it. I just didn't LIKE or enjoy it. Toni is my favorite author, but this book is not one of my favorites.

In one of my favorite books of all time - Beloved - Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison wrote, "Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?"

God Help The Child, Ms. Morrison's latest book, is no Beloved. The sheer power and nuances and poetry does not quite reach that level. But like Beloved, it unflinchingly explores the risk of feeling - counting on something - when that very act is risky.

Lula Ann Bridewell (later shortened to just Bride, is the daughter of lighter-skinned parents who are shamed of their daughter's midnight black skin ("she was so black it scared me.") Bride carries her mother's rejection to adulthood, where she assumes another kind of skin (all white clothing, all the time) and takes her place as an executive at You, Girl, a trendy cosmetic company, where "black sells."

But soon everything starts unraveling. Her lover, Booker, tells her, "You are not the woman I want." And then there's the run-in with a woman from her past - a child molester she helped put behind bars. Most terrifying of all, more and more, Bride begins to physically resemble her former self. How will she be able to claim - and love - her authentic self?

The journey toward self-acceptance is the major theme as this novel progresses. Since this is Toni Morrison - in my mind, a literary goddess - the writing is very often luminous and the issues explored (racial issues, child abuse, emotional scarring, the misplaced emphasis on physical beauty) are dealt with masterfully.

I was reminded a little of Helen Oyeyemi's Boy Snow Bird (although, of course, each has her own distinct style). I might have preferred the message to be a tad more nuanced (for example, at one point, Bride meets a young girl with a black-and-white kitten. The girl asks her mother: "Why is her skin so black?" "For the same reason yours is so white." "Oh. You mean like my kitten?" "Right, born that way.") Still, this is a worthy addition to Toni Morrison's many wonderful works. Long may she reign!

I don't know, I think I may have a problem with Toni Morrison. I find her characters and the stories always a bit too fanciful, a bit too zeroed in on the race factor. And totally devoid of humor. In this thin volume, you get a whole cast of characters that are in some ways caricatures, in some ways clichés. And none of them really fleshed out. I got the feeling that Morrison was pressured by her publisher to put out a book, and she thought that child abuse, since it was receiving so much attention, would be a good place to start. So here you have the feline, perfectly poised, hugely successful, insanely beautiful Bride (almost as unbelievable as Mr. Grey himself), the hugely talented drop-out boyfriend Booker, the colorful, wise old aunt Queen, the ageing hippies who live on the edge of the woods, the waif from nowhere Rain, the disapproving kooky blond best friend who nonetheless is always there to lend a helping hand, and last but not least, the big wronged white lady. Bride is a pretty smart, capable gal, but she manage to get beat up to a pulp, then she crashes her car. Then, interestingly enough, she begines to metamorphize back into a child. In between there are some pretty abhorrent child abuse passages. What would this book need to make it a success for me? Some kind of resolution between the mother and daughter, some kind of resolution between Bride and her victim, some kind of resolution between Booker and his family. As is, the conflicts are left simply to peter out on their own. (less) [edit]

God Help the Child: A novel by Toni Morrison is a short book, but it packs a lot into those pages. Bride, who as a child was given the name Lula Ann by her mother, Sweetness is the character around whom the book revolves. As an infant, a very dark skinned child, she was scorned by her much lighter skinned mother. Her father, who was light skinned as well, assumed she wasn't his child, and soon left Lula Ann and Sweetness to fend for themselves in the world. He eventually relented enough to contribute something to their income, but he was never a father to little Lula Ann.

While in elementary school there was an opportunity for the little girl to try to please her mother, and gain attention, and she hoped even love. Being a child she didn't really understand the consequences of what she did, but she never forgot the day that her pointing finger changed someones life forever. She decided to make it right.

As she grew into a young adult, Lula Ann changed her name to Bride and became very successful in her chosen career. Instead of hating and hiding her color, a mentor convinced her to own it and take power from owning it. This was good advice, and it contributed to her career success. But love still eluded her. And when the man she loved left her over this thing that she longed to make right, something in her changed. Her life spiraled out of control. She became much more like little Lula Ann than the grown and successful Bride. She found others who shared the grief of not being wanted or loved. Everyone she met along her way touched her, changed her in some way. And she touched them as well.

When you read a novel by Morrison, you know that you are entering a dark and tangled web woven with words of silk and satin. Every one of her books is well worth your time to read and to immerse yourself in. This was a wonderful read.

I'm a fan of Toni Morrison's writing. This book was a good look at someone who had a traumatic upbringing and the effects that having "crazy" parent can have on that child. There are a lot of topics that could be expounded upon. Some of the book read like a dream and leaves one to wonder, "what's really going on?" Overall, a great conversation piece and a good introduction to speaking about some taboo subjects.

The book is both brilliant and something less than successful overall.

The first two sections of the book are carefully crafted and have spare but very effective and elegant characterizations. And they contain prose that is occasionally as apt, insightful, and funny as it is terse. ("Beyond the houses, next to a mall as pale and sad as 'lite' beer, a sign announces the beginning of the town." "I don't think that many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get." "Nina Simone was too aggressive, making Bride think of something other than herself.") Largely through understatement , innuendo,and the following out of (even) ostensibly small consequences, in parts I and II, Morrison gets even a reader who has thought a lot about color, colorism, and 'skin privileges' to think more about how issues of race and color embed themselves in the very fabric of our thinking.

But I don't think that the last two sections follow through effectively. The plot begins to unravel a bit in Part III (why, exactly, is Rain introduced? Why does she simply disappear?). And I don't think that Part IV holds together at all, either in its own terms, or as the provision of (what one might hope would have been) meaning and sense to the book overall.

I will read it again more slowly and carefully when I have had the chance to think more about the book and have the time to work through it more carefully. Undoubtedly, I have missed important things. But I also suspect that my overall assessment of the book--that parts I and II are terrific, and that in Part III, and especially Part IV, the center does not hold.

While I'm a fan of Ms. Morrison's work, this was not a favorite. There were interesting physical qualities to Bride but as a character she fell flat. Her love interest was more compelling but did not get the pages to develop. I also wish that the social issues mentioned were dealt with by the characters processed and overcome, or not. Overall, I think plot overwhelmed process and illumination.

Another suggestion is "Black Butterfly" by Victoria McGrew. This very real and emotional journey of a book/memoir has been endorsed by Doris Buffett, the older sister of Warren Buffett. To read Doris' endorsement, go to bookglow.net, and view "Black Butterfly".
For more information on its release, visit open-bks.com
Enjoy the ride!

The book started off great, typical Toni Morrison. The first pages grabbed my attention. However, somewhere after the halfway point, something bad happened. For me, the book lost it's spark. I liked the book, but because I love Toni Morrison's writings, I was very disappointed.

Thought provoking, and the words paint a canvas of several needs; acceptance, forgiveness, fear, loathing, confusion, desensitization, ignorance, redemption and hope. Twenty years later and separation by color, class, appearance, wealth or lack of, socio-economic vetting, marches on in 2016 without the presence of love, the healing balm.

Morrison has a poet's heart and art. That she chooses novels as her medium is just our good luck, as we get to meet beautiful, troubled, wild and wicked characters through her. I love "Bride" (Lula Ann) and honesly, I love all the characters because none of them is without redemption. Thank you for another gem, Toni!

Of course I loved this book...it's Toni Morrison. "God Help the Child" is Morrison's first novel set in contemporary times. While it centers around the character Bride, the novel tells of the impact a parent's words or actions can have on a child. Bride is describe as being rejected by her brown-skinned parents for having "blue-black" skin. Though she grows into a stunning beauty, that rejection throws her world into a tailspin that she must confront years later when a woman she'd sent to jail for 15 years is released. There are other characters whose actions and connections to Bride are all influenced by something in their childhood. The book is short, only 175 pages. But it has Morrison's classic storytelling with memorable lines and stunning imagery. She does an excellent job with the transition to contemporary, and even convincingly channels the voice of modern twenty- or thirty-year-olds. The book is not as heavy as her earlier works, but I think she's mastered the art of saying so much in so few words and making seamless transitions between scenes, that the book's brevity doesn't diminish its much deeper meaning.

Toni Morrison’s latest work continues her examination of the human heart. The book focuses on a young couple who can’t seem to figure out how to be in love. The answer lies in their pasts, and Morrison does a wonderful job of exploring how love often seems to be about everything but the actual relationship. Her presentation of Bride, a successful businesswoman in the world of cosmetics reveals how the impressions made on us as children and carry through into our adult lives, even when we think we’ve left them behind and are free to move forward. Morrison has always shown powerfully how the past is never past, and God Help the Child is no exception. I was especially interested in her observations on the importance of appearance for women and how even the most beautiful of women carry deep insecurity. Morrison’s presentation of Bride’s lover, Booker, and her mother add enormous depth and insight to the story. The novel is short and focused, and while this brevity can seem a little disappointing in comparison to some of Morrison’s previous sweeping novels, this is plainly the work of a master story-teller.

It's hard to for me to understand the context in this story because I don't think the timing makes sense.

Also I know every story doesn't have to be wrapped neatly in a bow but the end of the book leaves me with A LOT of unanswered questions.

Finally, it's a little predictable.

Clear and precise language puts you into the mind of each character. This book will open your eyes to the extend of child abuse if you are not already aware of the magnitude of these crimes. Even well-meaning adults who believe they are doing what is best for the child can cause damage. Children bear the scars for life and if not helped, inflict them on future generations.Indeed, God help the child.

Disjointed, forced writing with the descriptive originality and formulaic plot of a romance novel. Hard to follow and hard to care about the protagonist -a young, style conscious fashionista whose fate takes her on an truly unbelievable journey to find her mystery man. Several characters are impacted by events of child sexual abuse both real and imagined in a way that seems gratuitous to the heart of the story. Most characters are just that surface characterization - rampant cliche's. Am having a hard time comprehending why this is an award winning author.

Toni Morrison has done it again with God Help the Child. In many ways this is typical Morrison with a touch of magical realism and profound probing into racial issues. It is also a story of love and forgiveness, well told and well written. Just as you would expect. Not my favorite Morrison book, but worth reading.

As a new author, I find this book to be brilliant, beautiful, and engaging throughout. I look forward in reading many more of Mrs. Toni Morrison inspiring books.

Anthony D. Wood
c/o Velvet Tears: Breaking the Silence

I wish I could write like Toni Morrison...she is just so incredibly gifted that I am in awe. This book tells the life stories of several intertwined characters through a compelling plot. It is painful and magical. Highly recommend this book.

I thought the story was interesting, informative, and kept my interest. But my individual preference in novels is to have the end of the story wrapped up from the author's point of view. It's a disappointment to not know the rest of the story.

I love Morrison and waited with baited breath for this new novel and although I was not disappointed as the timbre and musicality of her language is unsurpased and in itself a joy, there were aspects of the plot that I found difficult. I could not really engage with the 'blue-black' Bride. I didn't believe in her and found it hard to know and therefore like much. I think some of the problem was that the contemporaneous setting lacked a sense of realism, there is very little that reflected the speed and urgency of current communications as Bride sets of on what is essentially a road trip apparently devoid of access to any social media or all the accoutrements of the young today. I think writing across the divide, speaking in the voice of someone so much younger and essentially therefore of different cultural norms weakened my belief in the plot. The writing is as usual peerless and at times breathtaking but due in part to its brevity the ending seemed a little contrived and rushed.

If you are a Baby Boomer you need to read this book and remember. Remember that even if you had a childhood that didn't meet your adult expectations things change. Things change all of the time. Toni Morrison's skill makes you beat your fist on the table, cry, then laugh about life.

This was a lovely and easy read, minus the poems ;). It has powerful lessons and scripts. I only wish it were longer...drawn out even. Nevertheless, I recommend this short story in between your longer novels.

God Help the Child is not my favorite book penned by Toni Morrison but it is another great novel added to her impressive body of work. If you like Toni Morrison God Help the Child is worth reading. Ms. Morrison is hands down one of, if not the best, living American authors. Her thought provoking work will undoubtedly inspire and entertain present and future generations of readers and writers.

I must say, I really enjoyed this book, at first I was a little dumfounded but I kept going I'm so glad I did. It's been a lifelong dream to say I've read a " Toni Morrison" book. I did it, please pick this book up and read it,it's so delectable.

Toni Morrison is such an excellent wordsmith! Her writing stirs the imagination & emotions, makes you think about your connectedness to others. Troubling at times, but overall very rewarding to have read.

This is a book in which a black woman wants to smother her new born baby because it's skin is too dark. It is not set in the 1800's but in modern day America. I hope this isnt what black people feel when they have kids. I didn't like this book. It suggest black people need to say they are better because they have lighter skins so they can have some pride. I didn't agree. I didn't like this book. There are other reasons to feel good about yourself. This book is written in the mindset that EVERYTHING in the whole world is about skin color. I don't agree. I didn't like this book. If all you want to read about is race, and how bad it is to not be white, this is the book for you. I would think that a black author could show black characters who like themselves and give readers reasons to feel good about themselves and life in general. This is not the book for that. I didn't like this book.

There was also a lot of emphasis on black people passing as white. This is not something people usually do in modern times anymore. In this book one of the characters mentions Whitney Houston's song I wanna dance with somebody, so in this modern day and age do they spend their time passing for white any more? It is not slave times any more. I don't think they do. I didn't like this book.

The story about a girl who was abused through neglect who goes on to become successful in the beauty world. She still carries the baggage from her youth and finds a young man who also has baggage of his own to work through.I think the author did a good job of showing how complex self image is and how what appears to be true isn't always.

When I saw Toni Morrison, I was expecting something along the lines of Beloved or Song of Solomon, so I was surprised to find a story set in modern times. Even though I can't relate to the characters at all, I was immediately immersed in the story and couldn't wait to get to the next page. I gave it a four because there were some parts that I thought needed to be fleshed out a but more (but who am I to tell Toni Morrison how to write? ?)

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison is the repetitious story of my skin is too dark, my man left me, and my momma did me wrong (that's why I am so messed up as an adult) story line that has been beat to death and needs to die. The story nor its characters were fully developed. I had no reason to care for the main character, her mother, or her boyfriend. I didn't learn anything from the story. It left me quite...well void. The book wasn't even 200 pages so I'm not sure if the story ended or if a part 2 is coming. This will probably be the shortest book review I have ever written because the book just didn't give me anything to write about. The story was stereotypical and arid. Definitely, not one of my favorites.

Toni Morrison, a Nobel Laureate whose previous novels Beloved,Song of Solomon, and The Bluest Eye are staples in any study of modern American fiction, has returned to familiar themes of race, family and self in her latest novel "God Help the Child".

Lula Ann ("Bride") is born to a light skinned African American mother (Sweetness), but Bride is dark skinned. Sweetness finds her daughter repulsive not only because of the color of her skin but because of the constellation of social stigmas that come with the color. Bride is able to construct an identity for herself that celebrates her blue-black darkness. However, Bride cannot escape her past.

Skin color and the politics of getting by in America form the core Morrison's novel as she explores the pressures and strains that race places on a family. Like all of Morrison's novels, "God Help the Child" requires digestion, rumination, to uncover the layers of meaning and significance for each character. Morrison's prose is nothing short of beautiful, and readers are rewarded for tasting Morrison's well crafted sentences and thoughtful imagery.

As always I love how Toni Morrison writes. She is so expressive in her writing you cannot but have the visualization of what is going on. Two people who have been affected by abuse cannot trust or love,however upon having a second chance together, find love and forgiveness through their relationship! Please continue to write in your expressive ways Ms. Morrison!

I loved, loved, LOVED this book! Toni Morrison writes with such carefree prose that makes it easy to be drawn in, despite the gravity of the events that take place throughout the novel. Morrison does a great job of developing each and every character without being verbose, which resulted in my empathizing with each immediately upon their introduction in the novel. Without revealing too much, let's just say I was content with how the book ended.

I admire Toni Morrison for many reasons, not least that she has written several of the best novels of the 20th century (Bluest Eye, Paradise,Beloved, Song of Solomon), so it is troubling to find myself deeply disappointed with her latest novel. I won't go into detail about it--the characters (Sweetness, Bride, Booker, Queen, Brooklyn) are shallowly developed, stereotypical, even cliched. They feel shoveled into the situations which are contrived (not, as some seem to want to say, examples of "magical realism," but simply improbable or sometimes standard melodramatic daytime tv), and very little of the novel inspires the kind of serious emotional response or thought that Morrison's other works have prompted. It is the first novel by Morrison set in the near present. Sadly, it does not suggest that Morrison is a close and perceptive observer of the contemporary world, but rather that she has borrowed images and situations from contemporary advertising, fashion magazines, human interest stories in Sunday supplements. If it were a first novel by a talented young writer, we could forgive its inadequacies. From Morrison, it is simply one we must hope to forget and move on.

This was a very good read. One of the best books I've read this summer. Toni Morrison wasn't her usual thesaurus self, it was very comfortable to relax with one of her books. I just wish it were longer.

I enjoyed reading another one of Toni Morrison's books - she takes my breath away with her words, her meanings, and tone. I want to read more of her writing. She is one of my favorite authors - what a powerful voice so glad I am able to understand her.

The book was not long, so thankfully, my disappointment was brief. Morrison included symbols that were practically highlighted in neon orange. Characters were sterotypes, She made it very clear from the outset that we were going to be examining Very Important Societal Conflicts. She would have made more of an impression discussing the conflicts on an Oprah episode.

I enjoyed the novel God Help the Child. Ms Morrison deals with several complex themes in this book that have touched many of our lives as children and impact is as adults. Child abuse, sexual abuse, and child abandonment are interwoven but not dealt with in a simplistic way. I intend to reread it on a few months in the hopes of continuing to explore these themes.

The story line is so intoxicatingly. It draws you in and leaves you yearning for more. The ending leads you to hope for a sequel or even just a expansion on any of the surviving characters. Well done Ms.Morrison.

Eloquent, story captivating. I enjoyed this book. I found it easy to read, flowed well and you could imagine everything described because the descriptions were so well written. I don't think this is her best work but it's worth a read.

It’s always a bit difficult reviewing the work of a master (and such I consider Morrison to be). Do you compare new works to old ones, or do you allow them to stand on their own? If I had never before read a Toni Morrison book, I probably would have loved this one, but having read some of her more powerful works like BELOVED and LOVE, I was somewhat disappointed by this one.

What I love about the other works mentioned is the work that Morrison puts into piecing together a coherent story through disjointed, often seemingly incoherent, stream-of-consciousness, pieces. She expects her readers to work hard to put her fractured characters’ fractured lives back together, but the reader is well rewarded for doing so. This disjointed, fractured sense is, in fact, part of the point. Morrison’s stories inevitably revolve around trauma, especially formative trauma, whether individual trauma such as child abuse and sexual violence or whether cultural oppression, and how that trauma splits its victims into dozens of little pieces that can, roughly, be sewn together, but never fully healed, integrated and understood.

This story, like THE BLUEST EYE and some others, is told much more as a straightforward story. True, the first part, and the first chapter of each subsequent part, is told in alternating viewpoints of the main characters, and there is some piecing together to do before we understand the gist of the story, such piecing together is relatively easy and straightforward, and most of the story is told in standard narrative, linear form.

We know from the blurb on the cover that Bride, born Lula Ann Bridewell, is a stunningly beautiful, dark, blue-black woman whose “high yellow” mother was repulsed by her dark skin and all but rejected her, or at least physically repelled her. Trying to get even the slimmest bit of approval and contact from her mother, little Lula Ann accused a teacher of sexual assault, thereby ruining her life.

The story opens as Lula Ann has reinvented herself as the white-garbed, make-up free black beauty who heads a wildly successful cosmetic line, YOU, GIRL. By all appearances, Bride has risen above her past and moved on beyond her childhood. But appearances deceive, and our first clue is how Bride clumsily attempts to make it up to the woman she ruined, as she gets out of prison many years later. In the process, she loses the man she loves, the one who holds all her fractured girlhood pieces. So, leaving her business in the hands of the white girl, Brooklyn, who holds her adult world together, Bride sets off after after Booker.

Her quest proves to be, not unexpectedly, a bit surreal. All she has of Booker’s cold trail is a pawn ticket that leads to a trumpet and the town of Whiskey. On the way to Whiskey an accident in the middle of the night results in a lengthy layover with a white couple living a voluntary life of pauperism along with the little white girl they found in the rain. It seems that Bride and young Rain form a bit of an attachment – they both understand each other in a perverse sort of way – but then Bride is back on her way to Whiskey where she finally meets up with Booker and his Aunt Olive. The characters we’ve met along the way fade into the sunset as Bride’s path leads her away from the life she’s built back to the life she rejected – the life that rejected her. These characters, fascinating as they may be, are not meant to be real. Instead, they melt away to form the glue that allows Bride to put the pieces of her lives back together, even if we can still see the jagged edges where the pieces are still badly joined. Out of these pieces, Bride – and Booker, putting his own pieces together – will make yet another new life for herself, but in typical Morrison fashion, we don’t get a very clear glimpse of this new life. Will the pieces stay together this time? Can Booker and Bride be each other’s glue? The story seems to leave us on an optimistic note, if a tenuous one. But life in Morrison’s worlds is real and raw and nothing should ever be taken for granted.

Like all of Morrison’s work, this one can be read multiple times before all the layers of meaning will reveal themselves. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this work as powerful and compelling as many of her other works, so I’m not sure when it will be that I’ll get around to those re-readings. Nonetheless, I still recommend this book as I do all of Morrison’s work.

I had hoped for more character development...felt as though we were led to disdain a character or characters without getting a fuller picture of their life..just bits and pieces...overall interesting enough to keep me reading on..

The reviews for this book have been highly deceptive. I am in awe of Ms. Morrison's early work. This book is in no way comparable. The unoriginal title is disappointing, and so is what follows that title.

This book keep you wondering. It showed a mother's twisted love,betrayal, friendships, holding onto your past, and finding true love. It talks about the topic most people don't want to talk like molestation. It gets you to thinking. Love this book.