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"Love" was typical Toni Morrison. It starts out requiring 110% of your intellectual being, otherwise, you are lost from the gate. And that is what happened to me. This book was very confusing and hard to get into. The character depictions, the indepth descriptions of a oceanside town, the timelines, spirits from the sea claiming lives,etc was just too much to concentrate on. I often found myself going back and rereading passages to figure out relationhips amongst the characters. It wasn't until I reached page 107 or so that the book either started to flow, or my mind was clear enough to understand. That "aha" moment was like a breath of fresh air and redeemed Ms. Morrison as one of my all time favorite authors.

Love can mean different things to different people based on their relationship with the person or thing they are in love with. The premise of this book is the love between two childhood friends who are made to hate one another by the very adults whose guidance and affection they needed to survive. As most of us know, in order to hate, you must first love, and love conquers all, even hate. The problem is, hate consumes so much of us in terms of time, and energy. So here we have two childhood friends, taught to hate, and wasted lives that find them in a quandry some 50 years later, realizing that thier love for each other is stronger than their hate. Unfortunately, this realization comes too late (well not really in terms of forgiveness).

Ms. Morrison's tale also deals with other social issues that probably unsettled many readers, but that is her writing style. Slavery, oppression, child molestation, self-hatred, it is all there, even the narration of a kindred spirit. The ending left me wanting more closure and June Viviane having some form of blood ties to Bill Cosey, her Good Man.

Tracy L. Darity is the author of "He Loves Me He Loves Me Not! and "Love...Like Snow In Florida On A Hot Summer Day.