Have recently gotten into African-American books (recently read Haley's "Roots," Frederick Douglass' autobiography, and LOVED Edward P. Jones's "The Known World"), and knew I had to read Hurston's work. While there are sections of the book that are extremely powerful and moving (the grandmother's soliloquy (sp?) about spirit and freedom of the soul, and the standoff between Janie and Tea Cake at the end), overall the book meanders too much for me, with dialogue in southern dialect that gets tiresome. Honestly, I found the foreword by Mary Helen Washington and the Afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to be the best parts of the book. The essays, both written by African-American scholars and educators, are brimming with intelligence, context and deep understanding of the woman and the time (1937) when Hurston's second novel was published. Female writers Alice Walker and Toni Morrison were obviously influenced by her work, but since I'm not that fond of those two writers' novels, it's not surprising that I didn't care for their idol's work. (Read 12/05)

It's been a long time since I've read this one and I also remember struggling to stay interested through the dialect sections. This one is often taught in 11th grade, but I haven't had a whole class do it yet.