Beloved by Toni Morrison
By: Leslye L. Arizona, AZ

Beloved takes you on a tragic journey to recovery and resurrection. The character must fight the internal battle she is facing, before she can fully recover. The novel opens in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sethe ran away from Sweet Home, a plantation in Kentucky where she served as a slave, while she was pregnant with her fourth child Denver.
Sethe has suffered the loss of two family members and two abandonments. Sethe’s first daughter died because of a slit throat, Baby Suggs died of depression, and her two sons Howard and Buglar ran away from home. Sethe works steadily to remember as little as she can about her past. Most of Sethe’s misery came from Sweet Home; where Sethe was beaten, spit on, and treated with little to no respect.
Sethe begins to flirt with Paul D, one out of five of the men with her in Sweet Home, And Denver starts to separate herself form her mother. As you read further into the novel the narration starts to alternate between the present time and the past.
Both Sethe and Paul D have secrets to be uncovered. Sethe will have to decide if she wants to stay living in the past and relive every misery over, over, and over again or if she will forget and focus on what is right in front of her. Read Beloved and uncover the mystery that lays between each page.