God Help the Child (2015)

God Help the Child, Morrison's first novel set in the twenty-first century, addresses the issue of colorism. Bride, the main character, is a beautiful and confident dark-skinned lady, but her looks drive her fairer-skinned mother to withhold affection and instead mistreat her. Morrison dives deeper into the difficulties that exist between mothers and daughters, the rifts that lie in even the most personal relationships.

God Help the Child is a heartbreaking novel about how childhood trauma affects and misshapes an adult's life. It is spare and unsparing. At the heart of the story is a woman named Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one aspect of her beauty, boldness, confidence, and success in life; but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the most basic forms of love until she told a lie that ruined the life of an innocent woman, a lie whose repercussions refuse to fade.

Link to read: goodreads.com/book/show/23602473-god-help-the-child