First Impressions of Beloved

Within the first sixty pages of Beloved, I knew that this book was going to be a challenge for me to read. I am a very straight forward person and like things in chronological order. I could hardly follow what was going on because there were so many flashbacks. There were also some flashbacks within flashbacks, or what I like to call "flashbackception".
I also find it hard to relate to the characters. I understand that in literary books the reader does not always connect with the characters, but I feel that the reader should be able to relate to the characters on some level. I felt like some of the meaning of the book was lost on me because I did not feel empathy towards the characters. I hope this changes as I keep reading.
One thing I somewhat liked was the suspense. I like how whatever happened at Sweet Home is only hinted at. It seems that almost all memories of Sweet Home are untouchable. One of my journals yesterday was about Denver and Sethe's conversation about Sweet Home. So far Sethe has only mentioned the good or decent parts of Sweet Home, but the bad memories are not spoken of. I look forward to uncovering the mystery of what occurred at Sweet Home.