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Nov 25, 2015logscribe rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
This is my third reading in about six years. The first melted me into nothing, and the second stood up quite well. This time I was a little disappointed - yeah, the person who said it left them feeling richer and better is right, but some of what was beautiful the first two times felt... flat? Trite? Shallow. I was less convinced. Still beautiful, but cheaper. And the racism is harder to ignore. One of the main threads of the novel doesn't work unless you accept that only some kind of saint could love a black woman. I recommended it with warnings previously, and now I don't know if I can even do that. (That said, the rhythm and texture of the prose is so lovely, and the successful bits of religion-and-family feeling so potent, I will likely read this again in a few years. Maybe. I don't know. Probably.)