Her writing is beautiful. The sensual minutia is startlingly intimate. But the depiction and the treatment of people of color, and the antiquated words used to describe them, jarred me out of the beauty time and time again. One could say, "well, it was accurate for that time period in the South," which I would grant as true, but there would be ways of imparting that without making the white characters totally fleshed out and the black characters only shallow caricatures. It was a shame, because I think that if she wrote them as beautifully as she did the ever-present crape myrtle trees, it would have been wonderful.
One other thing I need to mention though, was the writing of violence. It was quiet, and un-pretty. It was naked, and sudden, and, I feel horribly accurate. It looked you in the eye, slew, then walked away with barely a glance back. I was never romanticized, and yet it was woven seamlessly with images that were very romantic. It was better than any "glorious battle" scene I ever read because it was so silent and present and real.