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A review by amandasbookreview
Sula by Toni Morrison
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
“When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.’
‘I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.”
SULA
I am never ok after reading Toni Morrison. I have read The Bluest Eye, Beloved, and now Sula, and my heart is in shatters each time. There is quite the cast of characters but the book ultimately begins in 1919 in a town in Ohio called Bottom. The first character introduced is Shadrack who fought in WWI and struggles with severe PTSD. Due to this PTSD and his struggle to come to terms with what he endured in the war, he invents National Suicide Day. We then meet our two main characters in 1920, Nel Wright and Sula Peace. They grow up together and despite their families, they form a close bond until one event changes everything. One day, Sula and Nel are playing by the river with some other kids and one dies from drowning. More events occur and while Nel chooses a life of marriage and children, Sula is independent but the town soon views her as evil, and the only person to see her is Shadrack.
Trigger Warnings: Child Death, Fire, Murder, Alcoholism, Emotional Abuse, PTSD, Suicide, etc…
This book is heavy. It is a short story but Toni Morrison seems to fully grasp life in its entirety. She conveys the depth of loneliness, despair, love, and grief. Motherhood is the main theme in this book, as well as mother-daughter relationships. Sula is unapologetically herself and wants to focus on herself rather than make her life belong to someone else and it is unbelievably powerful. Considering the time, society thinks there is something wrong with her. But as I think about it, even if someone said that today, there would still be those who would be scornful of that person.
As I said above, Toni Morrison seems to fully grasp life but also the words in which to convey all the emotions. She has such a beautiful way of writing and each word is placed with such care.
Trigger Warnings: Child Death, Fire, Murder, Alcoholism, Emotional Abuse, PTSD, Suicide, etc…
This book is heavy. It is a short story but Toni Morrison seems to fully grasp life in its entirety. She conveys the depth of loneliness, despair, love, and grief. Motherhood is the main theme in this book, as well as mother-daughter relationships. Sula is unapologetically herself and wants to focus on herself rather than make her life belong to someone else and it is unbelievably powerful. Considering the time, society thinks there is something wrong with her. But as I think about it, even if someone said that today, there would still be those who would be scornful of that person.
As I said above, Toni Morrison seems to fully grasp life but also the words in which to convey all the emotions. She has such a beautiful way of writing and each word is placed with such care.
“There, in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning. For loneliness assumed the absence of other people, and the solitude she found in that desperate terrain had never admitted the possibility of other people. She wept then. Tears for the deaths of the littlest things: the castaway shoes of children; broken stems of marsh grass battered and drowned by the sea; prom photographs of dead women she never knew; wedding rings in pawnshop windows; the tiny bodies of Cornish hens in a nest of rice.”
SULA
I highly recommend the audiobook as it is narrated by Toni Morrison. I feel like she is the only person who could narrate her books. She brings all the emotions narrating it as she does with her words. I recently heard that Sula is going to be adapted into a mini-series. If they do it justice, it will impact many around the world.