Helpful Score: 6
To read a story, to wonder if you're catching all the details, to think about the story long after you've put it down, to appreciate the depth of the characters and their tragic situations is to read Toni Morrison. A Mercy is no exception. This story is about four women struggling to survive being female during the 1860's in the Americas. Dependance upon men was crucial. Slavery for natives and blacks was becoming a way of life and survival...for some. But who were the true slaves? So many interesting questions were raised in this story -- I look forward to meeting with my bookclub about this one!
Helpful Score: 3
Only 167 pages long, A Mercy is a much easier read than Beloved, but doesn't have the narrative pull of Song of Solomon. The prose is typical Toni Morrison, lyrical and vague. I always feel like I'm missing something when I read Morrison, but that piece almost always gets put into place later in the story - it seems like an afterthought, but of course it's so deliberate. I enjoyed this book, but would have liked more concrete narrative and a more definite plotline.
Helpful Score: 1
This book was so hard for me to read. I needed some Cliff Notes to help me along...or and English teacher.