Beloved is one of the most beautiful books I've read. It's beautiful and harrowing, a ghost story but not in the way we think of ghost stories. It tells a story of intergenerational trauma felt not just by a family haunted by a ghost, but also a country scarred by the sins of the past. Sethe's sins is directly because the sins of the United States, sins that haunted her and haunted her country. 

Beloved is a book that shows the brutality and dehumanization of slavery. In Beloved, past traumas continue to shape former slaves' psyche years on, even after they've escape, even after slavery has been abolished. It forms an inescapable truth that continues to scar them and leaves a wound that wouldn't heal. In Beloved, characters are given an enormous capacity to love, limited only by their freedom to love. It is a book about love, but not healing. Sethe's actions are because she loved her children so much, she couldn't bear to see them treated as cattle, as property.

This is a book that touches on many dark subjects. It is complex and weaves timelines and perspectives to create a picture of this family's past and present. It shows how the past bleeds into the present and the future. It is difficult to read in both style and subject matter but very worthwhile. I'd say it's a book I can see myself rereading in order to analyze it further. Highly recommended.