DNF.

I really trieddddd, but unfortunately, my time is extremely precious and the pile of books I have to read (TBR pile) is really high.

Anyone who writes chapters that are consistently over 20 pages long seriously needs to be slapped. I'm a millennial gal, and I require constant engagement. However, this particular thing just didn't meet that requirement. In fact, I literally slipped into a coma last night while trying to give it one last attempt, and I've only just managed to recover.

It's really a pity because I was hoping to find something interesting and engaging, but this one just didn't do it for me. Maybe I'll have better luck with the next book on my TBR pile.

Disappointing. I truly wanted to have a positive attitude towards this. I give one star for the disjointed writing and three stars for the knowledge I gained about the period. Overall, it's a generous two stars considering how difficult it was to follow.

When I read a story, I don't necessarily have to like the characters. However, as the author is their creator, I like to sense that at least he or she does. So many highly regarded modern authors seem to be overly focused on power and domination rather than love. Presumably, that's what they value.

But can a preference for power ever replace genuine love? Isn't the former like spiritual slavery, while the latter is similar to freedom in the fullest sense of the word?

*Blacks in the antebellum South who achieved their freedom often became slave holders themselves. Since slavery was deeply ingrained in the economy, it was almost (but not completely) impossible to conduct business without "servants," which was a euphemism for slaves. Most of the freed blacks portrayed in this story attempted, at least initially, to treat their slaves differently than they had been treated by whites. The honesty in the story lay in their discovery that the slavery system itself made human decency more challenging than they had ever imagined. However, this theme was not fully developed.

Another disappointing Pulitzer choice.

The narrative jumps erratically from present to past to future. This kind of temporal shift can be wonderful when there are characters one truly cares about. However, in this case, I found myself not caring much about any of them.

There are almost no positive marital, sibling, or parental relationships. The value systems of the time period are indeed hard to understand today, but it seems that no one in this book had a real value system at all.

The book may be revealing to those who were not aware of the practice of free African Americans owning other African Americans as slaves. But there was never a character sympathetic enough for me to get even the slightest glimpse of how they could justify this behavior from either the white or black perspective.

The majority of the characters lack any real introspection, and their motivation is unclear. While this may be a literary puzzle for the reader in some cases, here it was just frustrating.

This book does seem to fit the tendency I observe in modern literature. In the past, the tragic flaw was the downfall of a hero, a person admirable except for some weakness that led to their undoing. Today, it is more likely for a writer to paint unadmirable characters with one redeeming quality that is supposed to atone for their other breaches of morality. Or redeeming qualities are seen as an impediment to getting what one truly wants.

We seem to be determined to create characters that are "real," but are they just easier to compare ourselves to and feel good about our moral superiority, no matter how low the standard?