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Sula
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Sula
Unavailable
Sula
Audiobook5 hours

Sula

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal-or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 14, 2007
ISBN9780739343371
Unavailable
Sula

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Reviews for Sula

Rating: 3.860448718092567 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,426 ratings54 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sula by Toni Morrison is complex story set in an African-American community in Ohio between 1919 and 1965. It follows two best girlfriends from childhood through to old age and portrays one woman’s betrayal of the other. Nel Wright and Sula Peace, meet as children and their devotion to each other is strong enough to allow them to stand up to bullies and conceal a horrible secret. While Nel grows up to be a pillar of the community, Sula becomes a pariah. The author uses comedy, ribaldry, and sincerity to great effect and this story fully captured my attention.Toni Morrison has a powerful voice and the gritty language and exploration of family and friendship that Sula explores also captures the complexities of race and gender relations in the United States between the years of 1920 to 1965. I would classify Sula as a feminist novel, as the author uses powerful female characters to tell her story. The characters are realistic and humanizes a part of American history in this short but powerful novel. This is both Toni Morrison’s second novel and the second book by her that I have read. I am in awe of her frank, uncompromising and intense writing. Talented and impressive, I will continue to search out this author’s books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a novel published in 1973. It covers the time period from WWII to the sixties. The setting is Ohio. We know that this time period was harsh time. There was extreme racism during this time period. This story is also about relationships, friendships, women, and family. I love Morrison's writing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wow, this lady can write! Some of her sentences I had to read again in some sort of double take, as if I couldn't really believe how wonderful they were the first time. But reading them again just reinforced it. Some of it was too wonderful though, and it went right over my head. In this case, I just took the feeling from the words, which was also there loud and clear. Sula, is I suppose, an anti hero. She is suspiciously confident and challenging for a woman of her time. She makes some surprising decisions and leaves us wondering about her character. Her best and lifelong friend is Nel, and they go through a lot together in their early 20thC rural town. In this novel, I liked the writing more than the plot. And because you cant have a great book without both, I was left feeling a tiny bit disappointed. Even so I was left with a lovely feeling that I now know something that I didn't know. So that makes it very well worth the effort.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a stunning book that packs so much into its short pages. Morrison's writing is exquisite and the relationship between Nel and Sula is such a revealing and true rendering.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first time I ever read something truthful about the reality of girls' relationships as they grow from children into women.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quite enjoyed this one. Read it at the recommendation of my sister. Found the stories interesting in their examination of the multiple viewpoints, I am aware there is much more analysis possible of this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quite enjoyed this one. Read it at the recommendation of my sister. Found the stories interesting in their examination of the multiple viewpoints, I am aware there is much more analysis possible of this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent! I thoroughly enjoyed this reading. Thank you for this gift.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I
    Listened to every mournful word let go at the slowest speed possible and I have no idea what the Fitbit is trying to say. The narration is dreadful
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A beautiful work of fiction which makes me want to devour more books by the author. The writing is so taut and poignant, I relished every sentence, and was on the edge of my seat the entire time. This book is a microcosm of Black history, the way the ordinary African-American lived in the 1920s, during Segregation and Jim Crow. And yet, despite Morrison's penchant for historicizing these Black experiences, the work's literariness is never in doubt.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Had to read this for school, actually was not half bad. spoiler alert: the main character is crazy as frick
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    After finishing Song of Solomon, I knew I had to read more Morrison, and thanks to the Book Riot podcast, I decided Sula was what I should read next.This book was marvelous. I am not going to say anything new about Morrison's writing -- she was a genius and it should be universally acknowledged. I loved this book for centering women and their complicated relationships, especially in a small town. Women trying to make lives, choosing from the narrow options afforded them as Black women in the early 20th century. It resists easy judgements on its characters and their actions even as it sets up Sula and New as opposites in some ways, their lives remain entangled and mirror each other in complicated ways.A gem of a novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Adult fiction. Great storytelling done by the narrator (and of course, by Morrison). Listening to it 20-min. at a time during my work commute probably isn't the best way to enjoy it though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    the writing is impeccable. morrison weaves girlhood, the personal and political and social gossip in a masterful way. i loved it and the swampy evocativeness and brutality of windswept Bottom and the memorable characters: Eva, Shadrack, Ajax, Chicken Little. fairytale inflections
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sula is an unusual story about two inseparable friends—Sula and Nel—who share a guilty secret when they are twelve. As grownups, they follow separate paths, meeting again when they are thirty only to discover they are no longer the same people. Set in the colored section of Medallion, Ohio, called The Bottom, the story begins in 1919 after WWI and ends in 1965. It is beautifully written and peppered with colorful yet tragic characters living through hard times.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this book for free through a complimentary Quarterly Literary Box. After hearing much about her, I have finally read a book by Toni Morrison. I really enjoyed this book. The way Morrison writes is so beautiful. She definitely has a way with words. The story itself was interesting. Sula and Nel together were so interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a female friendship quite like that before. Sula had this ethereal quality about her that was really captivating.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A vivid look at the life of a small-town African American community in the 1920s and 1930s. Though the blurbs made me think it would be a story of two women's friendship, it was as much about the townspeople and their dynamics and the context of Sula and Nel's friendship.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Morrison's second novel is another one that I read on my own outside of college classes, and the one I remember the least.  The novel is set in the fictional town of Medallion, Ohio in the Black neighborhood jokingly known as The Bottom despite being on the hilltops adjacent to the white part of town in the valley. The main plot of the novel focuses on the friendship of two girls, Nel and Sula, growing up in the 1920s.  Nel is from a stable family with rigid rules while Sula's mother and grandmother are considered unconventional and loose.  Their close friendship turns on the accidental death of a child they were playing with, something they chose to keep secret.As they grow up, they go in different directions with Nel settling into a conventional marriage while Sula goes away to college and is rumored to have many sexual affairs.  When Sula returns after a ten year absence, she is decried as the personification of evil, and unites against her, especially when Sula sleeps with Nel's husband.  Nel and Sula do reconcile by the end of the novel.  A framing device set in the present day notes that The Bottom has ceased to exist and the hills have been gentrified for white peoples' home.In Sula, Morrison tells a story of a friendship between two Black women, something unusual in fiction up to that point. She creates two fully-developed, nuanced characters in Nel and Sula.  One chooses a conventional life and the other follows her own initiative but neither is judged as being the "good" or "bad" one, at least by the author.  The novel also shows the deleterious effects on a community living in segregation, and the internecine squabbles among Black people between "respectability" and embracing one's own identity
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sula by African American female writer Toni Morrison demonstrates definitively why she was awarded the Nobel Prize. Her prose borders on poetry, painting rich and detailed pictures in very few words.
    The general tone of this book strongly conveys the desperation and poverty Black Americans endure as the result of racism without ever talking about racism. Every moment, every episode hinges on the impoverished, second class citizen status of the character, yet the story is universal, the characters are not stereotypes but instead are typical of characters existing anywhere in the world. Sula and her friend Nel represent two very different types of people, those that are crushed by their circumstances and others who stand above them even as they continue to be marginalized.
    The storyline begins with a scene from WW I and proceeds through the next several years tracing the lives of the protagonists, of their relationship with each other and with others, and of their ultimate movement in vastly different directions.
    This is a powerful read eliciting empathy and compassion from any thoughtful reader.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The book is truly written without white gaze. It is a book about black people written in a language that black people would understand but it is not a book limited to black people. I think this book is written for everyone. There is tragedy there is romance there is humor it is a completely entertaining book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of Morrison's signature and most haunting works read by the author. Morrison is an extraordinary reader and is the exception to the rule that writers should not do their own audiobooks. Her voice is clipped and her tone understated, except when it explodes with the action. This recording is a masterful rendition of a masterpiece. What else do you need to know?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    High school and collage are students should give this book a chance.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Excellent, surreal and moving. Morrison's prose is elegant and crushing at once, like little bits of glass hidden in your dinner. A moving story about scorn,love and the way the world drifts around us.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quite enjoyed this one. Read it at the recommendation of my sister. Found the stories interesting in their examination of the multiple viewpoints, I am aware there is much more analysis possible of this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wow, this lady can write! Some of her sentences I had to read again in some sort of double take, as if I couldn't really believe how wonderful they were the first time. But reading them again just reinforced it. Some of it was too wonderful though, and it went right over my head. In this case, I just took the feeling from the words, which was also there loud and clear. Sula, is I suppose, an anti hero. She is suspiciously confident and challenging for a woman of her time. She makes some surprising decisions and leaves us wondering about her character. Her best and lifelong friend is Nel, and they go through a lot together in their early 20thC rural town. In this novel, I liked the writing more than the plot. And because you cant have a great book without both, I was left feeling a tiny bit disappointed. Even so I was left with a lovely feeling that I now know something that I didn't know. So that makes it very well worth the effort.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    One of those plots that consists of one thing happening after another (in this case usually much after another; short as it is, it takes place over a good fifty year period) and it's up to the reader to put the meaning of it all together. So it stays with you, but it's a challenge.I can see why Sula is the title character, but I think it's not just her story - nor just the story of the friendship between her and Nel - but rather it's about the three of them: Shadrack too, and the accident that threw them briefly together.And the place, of course; of course it's about the place.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    After having read The Bluest Eye my expectations were really high. I was deflated. Sula isn't a bad read; it's just ok. The story moved along disjointed, which made it hard to follow at times. I finished the book trying to understand its meaning; which is good, I suppose, for discussion. It's not on my list of highly recommended books but I do recommend it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I haven't read all of Toni Morrison's books, but I have read several, and this was, by far, the best. She honed the prose to a razor sharp edge that cut you to the core. You felt the characters' breath on your face as they lifted out of the book and into your mind and heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Having read other early Morrison novels, I found nothing surprising in Sula. There's the same gorgeous language and calming tone one will find in The Bluest Eye or Beloved, all layered over some of the most horrific scenes in print. More recent Morrison novels are told in the same beguiling whisper, but lack the urgency, and as a result, much of the story, that her earlier works show so abundantly.Compared to the other early works of Morrison I have read, Sula was similar, but its characters and scenes did not stick with me the same way her others had. Perhaps I'd grown accustomed to the richness of her stories and had too high of expectations. I wonder if it isn't that, for such a short novel, my attention was too divided. Despite being named after one of its characters, Sula is the least focused on a sole character of the Morrison I have read. It really is the story of Sula and Nel, with equal time spent on Eva's story. All this division of focus in 174 pages left me unattached to the story; nevertheless, I enjoyed Morrison's evocative storytelling and the interactions between the characters. I look forward to the next.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A brilliant slice of Americana. Morrison blithely works a spell of magic on the "Valley" bringing life and light to her characters. A bygone era when people knew who they were - individuals!