From the Bookshelf of Womankind Worldwide Book Group…

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

Start date: May 1, 2013

Finish date: May 31, 2013

Why we're reading this: Their Eyes Were Watching God, you get to meet one of the greatest philosophers of love: Janie Crawford. T…more
[close] Their Eyes Were Watching God, you get to meet one of the greatest philosophers of love: Janie Crawford. The God in the title refers to these divine forces throughout the world, both beautiful and threatening, that Janie encounters. Her quest is a spiritual one because her ultimate goal is to find her place in the world, understand who she is, and be at peace with her environment.

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May 30, 2013 Alexa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fab-13

A glorious novel, with beautiful prose. I’m amazed at how funny and heartwarming it was. I expected a heavy tale of injustice and perseverance, but instead I got a funny love story. Yet so real, so immediate. It also amazes me that she can use dialect without ever hiding the intelligence or humanity of her characters. Two things quite surprised me. First, how infrequently white folks appear in the tale. Was it possible to live such an isolated life? Or was Hurston deliberately ignoring most of t ...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Jean Marie Angelo rated it it was amazing

I discovered Alice Walker in the early 1980s, and eventually read In Search of Our Mother's Gardens. Given Walker's admiration of Zora Neale Hurston, and acknowledgement that she was a major influence, I am sorry I didn't read this book until now. This is an honest and moving story about the black woman's experience told without shame or an over sentimentalized point of view. The forward and afterward of the version I purchased tell the story's of Zora's writing career and the snubs she suffered ...more

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Jul 02, 2018 Mae rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2018

Interesting story about a young black woman (Janie) in the 1930s - married three times, three different challenges against the backdrop of bigotry, financial and emotional need and the struggle for validation and independence. Although I found the story compelling, I found the use of the phonetic dialogue (for lack of a better descriptor) annoying to the point that it disrupted the flow of the book for me.

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