Maybe the coolest part about #BelovedFebruary this year? The idea that anyone now could go back and use each conversation thread as a way to dive into their own reading at any point going forward.
Link to all of the daily posts here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
pause and remember that I'd have answers as soon as Morrison wanted me to have them, in her time. Thanks to @marcusluther.bsky.social and @heymrsbond.com for starting this! I'd never read Beloved before, and this method of a book club was wonderful. #belovedfebruary
I'm several months past #belovedfebruary, but I finished Beloved today. It feels very fitting to finish on Mother's Day weekend. I know it was a slow read during February, but I read it even slower, taking extra time to absorb the story, the words, the feelings, reading beyond the pages. 🧵
Came back here to #BelovedFebruary to share what a student learned reading this book. He said it in a socratic seminar. “The strongest way to love is to help each other” 🥹
So now that #BelovedFebruary is over I need to latch onto a new book, I guess.
What's everyone been reading in 2025? 🤷♂️
Very grateful to have shared my first read with #BelovedFebruary & bummed to have missed today’s Zoom chat! Thank you all for sharing this experience and this wonder of a text. And much love to @marcusluther.bsky.social & @heymrsbond.com for organizing/facilitating! 💞💞
Honestly just a marvel of a book, a marvel of a writer.
And even though it is such a painful, challenging book, I am already eager to return to it again in the future, eager to discover and rediscover what Morrison has so richly tucked and hidden and layered in the pages. #BelovedFebruary
The parallels between Sethe & Baby Suggs in her bed, under the quilt.
“You your best thing, Sethe. You are.” 😭😭😭
I couldn’t help feeling throughout the book that these characters, these lives, are so precious to Morrison. The care she takes with them.
#BelovedFebruary
I fell a bit behind in this last week, more so with sharing my thoughts than reading. As I finished the book, Morrison continued to blow me away. The way the community shows up for Sethe, the ways in which Paul D and Denver evolve and grow…. #BelovedFebruary
This conversation today with others who went along our #BelovedFebruary journey?
Let's just say that my cup is full. 🙏❤️
(Community is a good thing.)
In a couple hours we are hopping on Zoom to talk Beloved and what it was like reading through it slowly and together the past month with #BelovedFebruary
If you want to hop on, send me a message and I'll share the link—excited to TALK with folks after such an incredible month of BlueSky comments 😎
Wow! This is incredibly helpful! Thank you for facilitating #BelovedFebruary. I appreciate all of the work you put into the discussion questions and curating everyone’s responses.
One other resource, too: a collection of all the different threads from February on one page—particularly helpful for going back and exploring what was said and considered with each chapter! #BelovedFebruary
(Also: sorry for not updating this while we read!)
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
A closing image for our month-long discussions of Beloved with several broader questions
We made it, #BelovedFebruary readers!
So much gratitude to all who joined along with this difficult, beautiful, important read 🙏 and also
1️⃣ a few stepping-back questions to consider, if you want!
2️⃣ a solid handful of us are hopping on Zoom to talk more at 4pm EST today (message me for the link!)
Yes - it seems like a happy ending but I am not sure it was. Does Sethe get up and get moving or does she stay in bed to experience colors? Can you forget and move on from that past or really come to terms with it? I think the end left me with more questions! #BelovedFebruary
I also finished, but so much going on in the world and at work and some family stuff - didn't post. I am so glad I read Beloved, and maybe the timing was perfect but also made this book so much more given the state of our country at the moment. #BelovedFebruary
Some of my final thoughts.
Sethe: solitary, internal, temporary, restrictive.
Beloved: expanding, distant, shared, permanent.
“Not the breath of the disremembered and unaccounted for, but wind in the eaves….”
I’ll be feeling this novel’s wind for a long time. #BelovedFebruary
The final two pages of the novel, Beloved by Toni Morrison. Multiple passages are underlined and there is marginalia scattered throughout.
I couldn’t stop underlining these final pages. How can we simultaneously pass on and NOT pass on this story?
Whatever one imagines Beloved to represent, this novel is a masterpiece in pushing us readers to face traumatic realities of our collective past. #BelovedFebruary
Merriam Webster Dictionary entry for “pass.”
I’m looking the word up in the dictionary and all the meanings work. Incredible. #BelovedFebruary
Toni Morrison is brilliant. No past tense. #BelovedFebruary
It’s Day 28. I managed to finish Beloved but couldn’t keep up with daily posts. I’m glad I read it, especially in community, but it was a hard read. I especially enjoyed learning and reflecting with others. Thx for hosting us @marcusluther.bsky.social and @heymrsbond.com
#BelovedFebruary
Reading Beloved with you all has definitely been worth firing up my dormant Bluesky account. I'm going to miss closing my book and opening my browser to share in our community. Thank you, @marcusluther.bsky.social and @heymrsbond.com for bringing us together for this! #BelovedFebruary
It's easier to forget her, to look away, to seek solace in her nameless anonymity and mythologized fish hair than to truly consider Beloved and "Sixty Million and more" that may have liked sweet things and crawling up stairs and stories and earrings and their mom's attention and... #BelovedFebruary
The last chapter is as elusive as Beloved herself. The repetition of "It was not a story to pass on," combined with the last lines, which achingly maintain that any signs of her are "Just weather. Certainly no clamor for a kiss," leave us with one thought: "Beloved." #BelovedFebruary
And I completely forgot to address the change in tense--"was" to "is" 🫢 #BelovedFebruary
3/ Morrison's epigram from Romans 9:25 "I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved" resonates in this last chapter because while the past fades, is deliberately forgotten, avoided, etc., Morrison doesn't let it be forgotten. #BelovedFebruary
2/ to "This" meaning that one should not pass up the opportunity to read/know this story. I imagine Morrison thinking these lines coming upon the newspaper clipping about Margaret Garner while she edited _The Black Book_ inspiring her to write the novel. #BelovedFebruary
1/ "It was not a story to pass on."
"Remembering seemed to be unwise."
"It was not a story to pass on."
"This is not a story to pass on."
"Beloved."
The repetition of "not a story to pass on" changes in meaning for me moving through the chapter especially when "It" changes #BelovedFebruary
I’m just so surprised that it had a happy ending…like I did not expect everything to get wrapped up nicely! #BelovedFebruary
Beloved by Toni Morrison, Chapter 28 discussion starter: The end. What did you make of the final pages? How do you feel with the way this novel closes?
"Beloved"
We are at the finish line, and I'm sure we all have our own reactions to this final chapter itself and, more broadly, how we feel at the end of the book.
Let's chat! #BelovedFebruary
