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Book Review of Paradise

Paradise
Paradise
Author: Toni Morrison
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on + 23 more book reviews


The story is one big puzzle, full of flashbacks that are intertwined and developed, leading to even more puzzlement. I never got all the characters straight, even the major ones. I found it almost impossible to follow the story line. And I found myself falling asleep after just a few pages. However, I plodded on. After all, wasn't this book recommended by Oprah? Didn't this book get rave reviews? Isn't Toni Morrison a Pulitzer Prize winner and a professor at Princeton?
It's 318 long long pages and I had to push myself to read it. Halfway through the book I almost put it down. Why was I still getting the characters mixed up. Why wasn't I moved by some of their stories? I hoped it would get better after I passed the half-way mark. It didn't.

The tone is heavy and depressing. The characters each have deep dark ugly secrets. There is rarely any relief from the long artistic, somewhat poetic sentences. I didn't understand the ending, but at least it was over.