Book Review | Jazz by Toni Morrison

I haven’t done book reviews in a LONG time, but I’m back at it again.

This was my first book read of 2021.

I LOVE Toni Morrison, but this was my least favorite book to read regarding cadence. I was SO confused! I might also attribute my confusion to the status of my mental health. I got this book because it was written by Toni (whose books have changed my life) and the title is Jazz, and jazz is partly where I got my name from! It broke my heart that I didn’t favor this book more.

I know that Morrison modeled the book after jazz music, where it takes twists and turns, and is hard to follow. That concept is BRILLIANT! Unfortunately my brain was not up to speed, although do I LOVE jazz music. I guess I just couldn’t catch the beat for most of this tune. Most times I wouldn’t know who was talking, who was narrating, what time I was in, whose life was being talked about. It was truly an adventure to say the least.

Toni is a phenom at setting scenes, I must admit. That is one quality that I absolutely admire about her mind and her writing. I could see things absolutely clearly. How she gives the reader details upon details is truly BRILLIANT.

In regard to the actual story line, I did love that (yes, I still loved it even if it was difficult for me to follow). The overall story of love, the oddities of humans, the pursuit of something better, falling in love with a city, allowing desire to make you do unspeakable things was wonderfully crafted. It was challenging for me to keep up, but Toni knows how to build characters. In the moments when I was fully present with her words, it was like hearing a sweet harmony between the piano and the bass and the drums.

Although this was not my smoothest read, I simultaneously wanted to get the book over with and want to find out the reason why the characters acted like they acted. It was a very interesting dynamic.

One thing in the book that didn’t fully get flushed out or confirmed, in my opinion, was if the main characters, husband and wife Violet and Joe were actually more connected through their foreparents than they realized. Again, I had to keep going back to review what was what, but it seemed like their grandparents (?? do not quote me because I was confused, I say!) seemed to cross paths. In what I was reading, it appeared that Violet and Joe were a part of a much bigger circle than they realized.

I probably will not pick this book up again for my brain’s sake, but I will say that I do not know how Toni came up with the idea to structure a book like that because I have never seen anything like it. She truly went to another place to write Jazz!

Have you read this book before? What are your thoughts? Did you love it? Were you just as confused as I was?