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The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
3 stars

Beautifully written but hauntingly sad. A young black girl whose belief is that if she just had blue eyes she would be beautiful and happy! Unfortunately, she is from a low income family and her life has been an uphill climb from the beginning. Ultimately, she is deceived by one of the very people that should always protect her. Heartbreaking.

I struggled with the first half of this book, putting the events and people into the correct order and context. The second half flowed a lot easier for me (reading-wise) and was proportionally harder to read emotionally. I give the author lots of credit for writing some very great beautiful lines and turns of phrase while writing about some very dark issues.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
4 stars
I read this a part of my 2018 Random Book project.
I love Toni Morrison's books and they all have a strange way of going off on tangents and then slowly resolving back to the main stream of the plot line or development of the main characters.
However, this particular book's tangents seemed to me to be more jarring than others and the content was truly emotionally wrenching. The concept of self hate is something that all human beings can understand and identify with but this book dealt with a form of self hated stewed in racial hatred, gender hatred, and individual worthlessness. Morrison is gifted in that you could differentiate these forces within all the characters but nevertheless I did not find it to be one of my favorites of her books.

Just finished The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
4 stars

Review available here:

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The Bluest Eye - 4 stars
Read March 2019 as part of my TBR challenge.

Even though it is a small book in terms of number of pages, it was a difficult read. I agree with the comments above, beautifully written, but such a profundly tragic book about racism and poverty. It pulled on all the heartstrings. The book was told through multiple narrators, and I thought it was very clever using Claudia as a child telling much of the story, as it made it more bearable to read. Pecola never really had a chance.

While searching for this book here, I found the old reviews from when it was a BOTM, so here is a link for those who are interested:

Reviews The Bluest Eye

Hilde wrote: "While searching for this book here, I found the old reviews from when it was a BOTM, so here is a link for those who are interested:

Reviews The Bluest Eye"
Thank you Hilde

Celia wrote: "Thank you Hilde"

You're welcome :)

This is my third book by Toni Morrison and her debut novel. In this book the author tries to give voice to what it is like to be rejected as a person by others. To want what your are not and to not embrace who you are. The story is told in Claudia's voice and an omniscient narrator and is the story of Pecola. Pecola prays for blue eyes. Pecola is 11 and she is black. The story is about loneliness and child sexual abuse which is not an easy, lighthearted subject but what makes this novel great is the beautiful writing by a very gifted author. Thee are many rich quotes that can be found in this book. Here is two, one from the start of the story and one from the end.

Quiet as it's kept, there were no marigolds in the fall of 1941. We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow. A little examination and much less melancholy would have proved to us that our seeds were not the only ones that didn't sprout; nobody's did…It had never occurred to either of us that the earth itself might have been unyielding. We had dropped our seeds in our own little plot of black dirt just as Pecola's father had dropped his seeds into his own plot of black dirt. Our innocence and faith were no more productive than his lust or despair.

The birdlike gestures are worn away to a mere picking and plucking her way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world—which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us.

Toni Morrison is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. She writes about being female, being black and she is one of the great American (female) authors.

5 stars

I think that everyone has felt rejected at least once in our lives. We have also all looked in the mirror and seen only things we thought of as flaws. Because we have these experiences we can have compassion for Morrison's character, Pecola Breedlove.

And yet, how many of us have been rejected by the entire world for something as unchangeable as the color of our skin? How many of us want a different color eyes because we think it will make us appear lighter skinned? That blue eyes are such a trait of white people that having them will mean that we are at least partly white.

Pecola Breedlove lives in a world that tells her that being white is superior. The book takes place during the 1940s in Ohio. I live in Colorado in 2020 -- 70 years have passed since Pecola -- how much has changed? I worry that it's far too little.

In The Bluest Eye we first meet nine year old Claudia MacTeer and her ten year old sister, Frieda. Their family struggles to make end meet, but still take in Pecola Breedlove after her father burned down the family home and goes to prison. Pecola believes that she is ugly and wants blue eyes. There is a local man who claims that he can work miracles, and Pecola goes to him to ask for blue eyes...

This story is devastatingly sad. It is tragic. And yet the voice is smart, nuanced and beautiful. There is an element of hope and the writing is impeccable.

In an Afterward the author explains that she wanted to make a statement about the damage that internalized racism can do to the most vulnerable member of a community—a young girl. I would say that she met her goal. I am a middle-aged white woman and she certainly showed me. This is a beautiful book.

A short book that really packs a punch. Lyrical prose and devastating content. Beautiful and terribly uncomfortable at the same time. Definitely belongs on the list.

Pre-2016 review:

*** 1/2

A beautifully written book about the troubles affecting a black family living in Ohio in the 40s, especially Pecola, dreaming of having blue eyes, but also victim of child abuse.

Read in 2016

This is a heart wrenching novel set in Lorain, Ohio in the early 1940s. Pecola Breedlove is the center of the novel and we watch her grow up in difficult circumstances. We learn of Pecola and her family both past and present and what shapes their character. I was captivated by the writing and was transported back in time in this novel. This is my first Toni Morrison book and I look forward to reading her others.