Welp...a quarter of the way through The Bluest Eye, I realized that the characters sounded vaguely familiar. A little further, and I remembered...
I've read this book before, and the experience was traumatic...not because it was a terrible book (it was a great book), but rather because I had to read it & discuss it in mixed company. This book was something I had to read in a high school literature class. I want to say I was probably a freshman or sophomore. I hated trying to "explain" the many different things going on in this book to my white classmates (although there were only a few of them). They never seemed to get it, or to even try. Even the teacher (who was white) was somewhat patronizing in her teaching of "what the author is trying to say." In the end, the reading experience ended up tossed into the back of my mind with the rest of the stuff I'd rather forget.
Then it happened again in college when the literature assignment was Beloved. Again, same thing, only this time there were like 18 white kids to our 2 blacks in the class. And we 2 clung together and defiantly dared anybody to offend us during the discussion of this book. That experience was a little better than the high school one, although I still didn't feel comfortable "explaining" the color issue - light vs dark, and things of that nature.
Nevertheless, revisiting Morrison at this new stage in my life has been a good thing. I'm glad I'm taking the time.