I'm glad I audiobooked this, because I have a dreadful track record with anything written in dialect--my brain processes the written version as basically a different language for some reason?--but listening to it made it very easy to follow.

That doesn't mean this wasn't a hard read.

I don't want to suggest that's a bad thing, because that's definitely what it was going for, but the things these women go through is rough, and I had to set it down for a bit to try to get into a better headspace and distract myself with something lighter.

I managed to go into this basically blind--I knew it was considered a modern classic and I remembered something from my childhood about Oprah being involved in a film version (?), but beyond that, all I knew was that it was not fantasy or science fiction, really. I like that I went into it knowing so little, because as things start being said, often casually by a narrator who doesn't really understand what they mean or how horrible they are, it hit a lot harder than it would have had I known more or was expecting it.

People can probably provide lovely synopsis and explanations of why this is a classic and important. I can't really say anything further except that this IS a book everyone should probably read, I'm glad I read it, for all the raw emotions it evoked, and it's one of those books that will stay with me enough that I'm not sure I could quite bear to re-read it and feel everything again.