God Help the Child vs The Bad Seed: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Mères et filles, Mothers and daughters, Fiction
God Help the Child
Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child--the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment--weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the…
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The Bad Seed
“LATER THAT SUMMER, when Mrs. Penmark looked back and remembered, when she was caught up in despair so deep that she knew there was no way out, no solution whatever for the circumstances that encompassed her, it seemed to her that June seventh, the day of the Fern Grammar School picnic, was the day of her last happiness, for never since then had she known contentment or felt peace.”
The Bad Seed is a 1954 horror novel by American writer William March, the last of his major works published before his death.
1 film adaptation
The verdict
- Readers rate The Bad Seed highest: The Bad Seed 4.0 · God Help the Child 3.8.
- God Help the Child has the widest readership — 33265 ratings behind its score.
- God Help the Child runs the darker storyline; The Bad Seed stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| God Help the Child | The Bad Seed | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 3.8 (33265) | 4.0 (20616) |
| Hardcover | 3.7 (34) | 3.7 (20) |
| Google Books | 4.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.0 (495) | 4.5 (61) |
Reception
| God Help the Child | The Bad Seed | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 33265 | 20616 |
| Editions | 22 | 17 |
| Citations | — | 27 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 37229 | 31467 |
| Reading it now | 1643 | 559 |
| Written reviews | 4394 | 1363 |
| Wikipedia attention | 1237 | 3346 |
| Pages | 192 | 247 |