This is the first time I've read Morrison and I've just been blown away. This is excellent, and tragic, and horrifying and I was mesmerised. I only stopped reading it last night because I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer (nothing to do with the book!) and I gobbled down the rest today, completely incapable of helping myself.

Beloved, the title character, is going to stick with me for a long time. There's this curious mix of revulsion and pity and the hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-neck around her, and it's not hard to see that indulging her will lead to trouble (and that it's going to happen anyway, because why wouldn't it?).

It's just wonderful. I don't give five stars very often (the curse of grading books on a bell curve!) but I wasn't far into this at all before it was plain it was a cut above my normal reading fare.