This was an incredible and inspiring read that had me both crying and laughing at intervals. It offers an important critique of patriarchal society, and even better yet it offers visions of what a matriarchal society could be. It also paints a beautiful and moving picture of what the matriarchal, pre-patriarchal cultures may very well have looked like in the past. Definitely something I will recommend to others, particularly the women in my life. ( )

This unreadable novel is the worst of 'feminist' fiction. Walker's premise is interesting enough but her characters are painfully one-dimensional, her plot slow and predictable, and the moral overly simplistic. Walker's non-fiction works are questionable enough to be novels, but her attempts at straight out fiction fail terribly. (The cover image used is from the German edition, but the picture is the same for the American edition I have.) ( )