What readers think of The Bluest Eye, plus links to write your own review.

The Bluest Eye Is a delicately and beautifully woven web of prose. Morrison adds texture and life to a tale of oppresion and depression. Although the evocative style and highly-motivated narration creates a seamless story, the sheer bleakness and unredeemability of this text can make for a heavy read.

The Bluest Eye is the first novel by American author Toni Morrison. It is set in 1941 in the small town of Lorain, Ohio, and tells the story of an 11-year-old Negro girl, Pecola Breedlove, who becomes pregnant to her father Cholly. Pecola’s family and environment is such that she is certain she is ugly; so convinced of this is she, that she wishes for blue eyes, believing this is the only thing that will relieve her ugliness. Narrated in part by a 9-year-old neighbourhood girl, Claudia, the perspective of young girls in this situation is novel. Some chapters detail the history of Cholly and Mrs Breedlove, giving some clues as to how this crippled and crippling family evolved. This reissue of Morrison’s first novel includes a new Forward by the author wherein she explains what she was trying to achieve. Some of the prose is quite stunning: “Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved.” The prose may be beautiful, but as a Dutch-born Caucasian living in Australia with a limited experience of the Negro, I found it difficult to relate to this book.

The bluest eye displays extremely well the toils and pitfalls of being black in 1940's America. Although slavery was abolished at this point, stigma was still in place for being black. The struggle that Pecola faces in the novel is one that can be represented to each and everyone of us in our everyday lives. Beauty is what people are rated on, in today's society, and it is a shame. Being ugly puts you at a disadvantage, portrayed in the novel and life itself.

A SIMPLE BOOK! The only profound effect it might make on someone would have to take effect on someone who has experienced the same type of pains as the characters. I was not terribly bored, yet I would not neccessarily recomend it. Though, I am only a 18-yr. old white girl without the experience of a segregated society. Even without the experience, I do not feel I have been enlightened to anything new.

i thought this book was pretty good. Although the sexual abuse and language was hard to read about. But, other than that I thought that this was a good book and it had a good ending.

yea i um thought it was an al rite bk. cuz it was to long for me but the story was good

This book is disgusting portrayal of pedophila!

The general story was great. But when I read it all i could see was sexual abuse, girls becoming women, and just gross things; Then at the end of the book it actually talks about 'BLUE EYES' go figure