Rating: 
Summary: A Beautifully Written Book.
Review: Wow!It must be strange for to read this from someone who is Asian: I am in love with this book. There is beauty in the colloquial dialogues of the characters, which makes the characters believable and enduring. Zora Neale Hurston's use the colloquail is her way of showing life as it is (not a degeneration of the South and Blacks)--a celebration of the Black culture. Lawd, Lawd, Lawd! Janie is most brave character I have read. From her mule-like existence with her first and second husbands, her endures and endures until she blossoms with the arrival of Tea Cake--what smooth talker! But tragedy strikes when Tea Cake has hydrophodia and Janie is force to take action (read the book to find out). From from the start of the novel to the end of court ordeal, Janie comes to a realization: "They got to tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves."
Rating:
Summary: An amazing book!
Review: Zora Hurston did a great job on this book. This book,about a woman's struggle to find love, is as close to real as fiction gets. The dialogue,which is sometimes confusing, makes you feel as if you are there listening to the characters speak. As the book progesses things get more and more interesting. The ending is like no other I've ever read. Everyone can learn something about life by reading this book. I strongly encourage everyone to read it.
Rating:
Summary: This is an American Classic.
Review: This book should be required reading for all Americans. It should be held up with anything that Fitzgerald, Hemmingway or Steinbeck wrote. It is a shame for someone like myself who has had a well rounded liberal education, that I would find this book when only now. Well I am happy I did. This novel is about culture. No different that the one that you and I live in. Just one that was forced to be separate because of the color of the people's skin. It also about the opening of a Women's soul. A soul forced closed by upbringing. An upbringing of love and fear. Her life with Husbands who would not let her hair down. The love of her life and their beautiful but at time troubling dance. Just sit down and read it.
Rating:
Summary: Every woman's hero.
Review: At the end, I closed the book and I cried. Then I wanted to open it and start reading all over again from the beginning. Janie is a woman who has endured oppression, suppression, and tragedy. She found love and she found herself. She not only survived but discovered her own strength and accepted life without self-destructing. Janie, is every woman's hero, most certainly mine.
Rating:
Summary: An Unusual American Classic
Review: I bought this book because it was on Amazon's Top 100 list. I never heard of the book before (embarrassing as I'm 30), but gave it a try. I find this book truly fascinating, especially given the context of the authors life (contemporary of Richard Wright, worked as a maid). It is a singing, lyrical book, full of hope for a life well lived and a love that's fought for to keep alive. Especially rich was the dramatic distinction in the book between southern black English of the time, seen in the dialogue, and the author's proper, university-level English, seen in the commentary. These juxtapositions alone made the book, though the story itself is absorbing. Consummately optomistic while attacking society at the same time, I prefer her to the dark, nihilistic writings from her contemporaries. I rarely read books twice, but I am guessing that I will pick this book up again in another ten years.
Rating: 
Summary: Who made this a "classic"?
Review: I have no idea who decided this book was so great, but it is one of the most overrated books ever. Good Lord, it is simply dreadful. Stay away from it at all costs - if you have to read it for high school english class as I did, save yourself the trouble and buy the cliff's notes.
Rating:
Summary: Students missing the point?
Review: I would like to comment on the following book. I have been reading the reviews from various students who have had to read the book in a class, and some of them seem to be missing the point of WHY it is, indeed, a wnderful work of literature. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a beautiful novel written about a woman's struggle for independence and in a snese, to find herself. If you haven't read books of this type before with a somewhat difficult dialogue to read (at times like the dialogue in The Color Purple), then that could perhas be why someone may not enjoy or understand it. Otherwise, an amazing book about the spirit of one woman.
Rating:
Summary: Very Over-Rated!
Review: It is a mystery why people think this is such a great book. Perhaps I'm not "artsy" enough, but I fail to see the genious in this book. Aside from the colloquial jargon, which I admit, takes talent (but is very annoying), there is nothing that can keep this book up to the level of Faulkner's work (which it has been compared to). The plot is extremely linear and predictable, not to mention unbelieveable; that storm scene is so fake it came across as humorous. The main characters bother me, they make situations worse, for example: Sethe should've waited for a man she loved insead of jumping into situations. I know people make mistakes, but she never seemed to learn from them. I don't know why schools make students read this, it's a waste of time. There are many books of the same genre that are MUCH better, like Toni Morrison's Beloved (or any of her books for that matter). Beloved is deeper, more artistic, and more enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: A great work of American literature?
Review: I struggled to read this book not too long ago, and found it extremely difficult to maintain any interest whatsoever in it. The dialect was confusing, and the characters and plot struck me as uninteresting and insignificant. Perhaps there is a reason this book has been referred to as a great work of American literature, but I fail to see it.
Rating: 
Summary: An insult
Review: Like a large number of the reviewers here I was required to read this book for my English class. It was very difficult to get into it. It was near plotless and the dialect gets old very quickly. I couldn't stay focused on the story. I didn't see any substance in it. I can see why some people enjoy this book, but I don't think most people would. The thing I found most annoying about this book was the frequent jumping between southern dialect and the standard literary 40-letter-word vocabulary. They just don't go together very well. It shocks me that they expect highschoolers to read, comprehend, and enjoy this book.
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