Sula

“Even Nobel Prize winners love a loose woman. Sula Peace, the namesake/uneasy heroine of this novel, is the obsession of her small town as she makes her way through its stock of married men, having the kind of orgasms that make you think "wow, I am NOT doing this right." Toni Morrison is never working on less than the levels, so this is a glimpse not only into the hopes and heartbreaks of a Black community across decades in a changing America, but also into the way that flouting the sexual manners of the moment lead to more conflict with the women watching than with the men participating. I read this book for the first time in 7th grade, and it’s stayed in rotation since. Sula is impossible to forget- for her more steadfast and constricted best friend Nel, for the men she loves and leaves, and ultimately for the reader.”

“I first read it as an eighteen year old who didn’t plan to ever go to college but who worked at a book store and it upset me so much when I was reading it in the lunchroom one day that I had to put it down and physically walk away for several minutes. Before that moment, books had brought me comfort and delight, but I’d had no idea of their raw power.”

““In a way, her strangeness, her naiveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of an idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings, had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like an artist with no art form, she became dangerous.“”