Book Review: God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

Author: Toni Morrison
Title: God Help the Child
Narrator: Toni Morrison
Publication Info: Random House Audio, 2015
Other Books I’ve Read by the Same Author:

• The Bluest Eye
• Sula
• Song of Solomon
• Tar Baby
• Beloved
• Jazz
• Paradise
• Love
• A Mercy
• Home

Summary/Review:

When Bride is born with significantly darker skin than her parents, she is raised without love. Her mother even insists on being called “Sweetness” rather than any maternal name. When Bride is still young, she falsely testifies against a teacher in “Satanic Panic” type of child abuse case, just so she can get a moment of affection from Sweetness.

As an adult, Bride has become successful in the beauty industry and plans to bring skin care products to the former teacher when she’s released from prison as a means of atonement.  This causes Bride’s current partner Booker Starbern to leave her.  The bulk of the book details Bride’s meeting with the teacher and her later search for Booker, both of which lead to a great amount of pain and suffering for Bride.  In flashbacks to their past, we learn that Bride and Booker’s experiences with child abuse have arrested their development as adults (in Bride’s case this becomes quite literal in a magical realist way).  It’s a powerful story of learning to deal with the trauma of abuse and racism and finding redemption in relationships with others.

Rating: ***1/2

Book Reviews: The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold

Author: David Gerrold 
Title: The Man Who Folded Himself 
Publication Info: BenBella Books (2003) [Originally published in 1973]
Summary/Review:

Daniel Eakins, a detached college student, inherits a time belt from his Uncle Jim.  The device allows him to travel through time and he quickly masters it’s use to make himself a fortune through gambling and investment.  But beyond traveling through time, he continues to be visited by variants of himself from different time periods.  The situation soon becomes confused as different variants of himself live together (and even have sexual relationships) and continually overwrite Danny’s past.  The book takes a philosophical approach to time travel paradox that is both clever and bizarre.   Gerrold, most famous for screenwriting “The Trouble With Tribbles,” was in the vanguard of science fiction/speculative fiction with this work, although it seems a little dated now.

Favorite Passages:

Look, you can change the future, right? The future is exactly the same as the past, only it hasn’t happened yet. You haven’t perceived it. The real difference between the two—the only difference—is your point of view. If the future can be altered, so can the past. Every change you make is cumulative; it goes on top of every other change you’ve already made, and every change you add later will go on top of that. You can go back in time and talk yourself out of winning a million and a half dollars, but the resultant world is not one where you didn’t win a million and a half dollars; it’s a world where you talked yourself out of it. See the difference? – p. 46

The past is the future. The future is the past. There’s no difference between the two and either can be changed. I’m flashing across a series of alternate worlds, creating and destroying a new one every time I bounce. The universe is infinite. And so are the possibilities of my life. – p. 49

Presumably there are worlds that are better than this one, but if I create them, it must be carefully, because I have to live in them too. I will be a part of whatever world I create, so I cannot be haphazard with them. – p. 73

Recommended books:

• Making History by Stephen Fry
• This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
• Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Rating: ***1/2

Book Review: Godkiller by Hanah Kaner

Author: Hanah Kaner
Title: Godkiller
Narrator: Kit Griffiths
Publication Info: HarperAudio, 2023
Summary/Review:

In the kingdom of Middren, gods are forbidden by the king, although the common people still worship on the sly.  Kissen, a woman whose life is scarred by the violence of the gods, takes on killing gods as a freelancer. But when she encounters a girl from a noble family, Inara, who has been tethered to the small god of white lies, Skedi, she makes a vow to protect them.  They travel to Blenraden, forbidden city of wild gods, in hopes of finding a way to separate Inara and Skedi.  They are joined on their quest by Elogast, a knight turned baker, on his own secret mission for the king.

Kaner creates a fascinating, lived-in world of high fantasy.  The gods are like mad creatures who gain strength from prayers, offerings, and shrines.  The main characters are all interesting and complex and I like how they become a found family.  This small group of travelers also serve as an entry into a bigger world of a kingdom on the verge of being torn apart by civil war.

 
Recommended books:

• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Rating:  ***