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What are readers saying about The Bluest Eye (Oprah's Book Club (Paperback))?
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-12-05 05:16:34.
(Language: English)
 
This novel is one of a kind, helping all peoples understand the state of race relations in the United States. This book is absolutely gripping in its portrayal of black life and there is no sentimentality here. But there is also a rough realism and gritty humor in the dialogue. Overall this novel contains an interesting view on life as African-American female and female insecurities. A very moving book, highly recommended.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-07-26 01:27:39.
(Language: English)
"The Bluest Eye" is a story about an eleven year old girl name Pecola Breedlove, who prays for her eyes to be blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the white children in America. It is about her journey through this racist society and the effect that society and family members have on her self-esteem. I really liked the novel because it was more grounded and talked about issues that are still relevant today. It was defiantly worth the read.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-05-28 03:47:48.
(Language: English)
The idea of self-loathing - either within oneself or within a community - is not specific to any one group of people, this book speaks to any and all who open its pages. No child should be made to feel they are less simply because of who they are. While this is not a feel good book it is a very moving book, and I highly recommend reading it..
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-07-24 08:49:03.
(Language: English)
This is a tough book, but a worthwhile one. This review is not original; it is a compilation of other reviews online for clarity. It helped me. I hope it helps you. Summary: Eleven year old Pecola Breedlove is very ugly. More than anything, she years for the adoration the blond haired blue-eyed white children receive. She wishes for blue eyes. But what she gets instead is raped by her father. This book was very sad. It is full of violent and unfulfilling sexual initiation, racial inequality, and empty lives. This is also (or was?) a banned book. I'm guessing because of the incestuous matter, but it could just as well be because of the wonderfully unashamed and graphic account of lovemaking between Mrs. Breedlove and her husband Cholly in the early days of their marriage. The prevalence of sexual violence in the novel suggests a pervasive assumption that women’s bodies are available for abuse. The refusal on the part of parents to teach their girls about sexuality makes the girls’ transition into sexual maturity difficult. The main character, Pecola, wishes for blue eyes. She does not want them simply because they conform to white beauty standards, but because she wishes to possess different sights and pictures, as if changing eye color will change her reality. She believes that if she had blue eyes, their beauty would inspire beautiful and kindly behavior on the part of others. she believes that the cruelty she witnesses and experiences is connected to how she is seen. If she had beautiful blue eyes, Pecola imagines, people would not want to do ugly things in front of her or to her anymore. Morrison is a gifted local author.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-11-19 03:19:52.
(Language: English)
Toni Morrison, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, is one of my most favorite authors. The Bluest Eye, her first novel, takes place in the American Midwest (Ohio) during the Depression, and contrasts the insanity of being Black in a White society against the happy Dick and Jane stories and white dolls of a young black girl. It deals with racism, rape, incest, identity and definitions of conventional beauty from five perspectives, as Morrison humanizes the struggle for identity and positive self-image. Just read it.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-28 08:45:55.
(Language: English)
This book will break your heart. In a nutshell, it tells the story of a young black girl who desperately longs to be beautiful-- the only way she believes she can attain this is to have blue eyes. She becomes pregnant after her father rapes her, she is humiliated by her peers, and is eventually driven mad (by the end she is quite vain about her new blue eyes). The greatest ability Morrison has is that she never creates "good guys" and "bad guys." I felt sympathy even for the rapist father... this book deals with so many issues. Beauty, poverty, Christian hypocrisy, rape... it's incredible. The book can be a little tough, but if you are willing to search for meaning, then you will find it in abundance.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-10-18 11:41:19.
(Language: English)
As some iReaders have stated, this is a difficult read. However, it is well worth the trouble. The language is eloquent and the characters evoke sympathy and overall every compelling. The novel also make a direct and effective statement about racial relations and standards of beauty. My favorite scenes are the rape scene, because its soo powerful, the description of the Breedlove family, because you immediately feel pain for them, the part where Pecola is thrown out of a light-skinned woman's house, and I especially like the insight into the individual lifes of the Breedlove clan before they became a family. Yet still, I love so many other scenes in between. This is a great book, any aspiring writer or avid reading should get a copy ASAP!!
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-11-10 09:25:18.
(Language: English)
An interesting story, I just hate Morrison's writing style.
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-04-19 11:35:19.
(Language: English)
angering, heart-breaking, frustrating ... not a book I'd recommend ending your night with. lol
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-08-11 07:28:36.
(Language: English)
Toni Morrison makes me angry. Here, she has taken the black experience, and pulled it to an absolute extreme, portraying characters who are so consumed with some ideal of whiteness that they are reduced to essentially self-loathing, hate-filled "creatures." White people will read this and they'll think, Oh, poor black people, and I read this and have to refrain from throwing it against the wall because apparently black people are warped to the degree that we are incapable of thinking for ourselves and holding our own values in even the smallest aspect of our lives. Nope, on the contrary, we are all striving toward literal whiteness and in the event that that does not occur, we will lead the most wretched lives possible. The writing is consistently amazing, though, I have to say.
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Kayla posted a review at 2010-05-21 08:38:51.
(Language: English)
The Bluest Eyes was so inspiring..this bookgave me an incite to what my ancestors dealt with. This book tells more then just individual stories of African American, it gave a background to the history of the black community and to black females. It put black women in a subjective light showing and giving detail to what they had to deal with and hide from the world just to try and fit into the societys of whites.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-01-17 05:02:39.
(Language: English)
Morrison has chosen to have a plot revolve around issues of social class, self-worth, stereotypes, and race. Pecola’s journey to self-identity leads to gradual psychic erosion that leads to death and a weakened concept of community. This novel depicts the shame associated with being a minority and living under substandard conditions. . How is it that we can only approach the subject of neglect and abuse when looking as through a microscope at others lives? It could be suggested that the readers are voyeurs on these children’s lives looking in and observing, to satisfy their own personal fetishes, never truly changing or improving anything in the world, but their own lusts.
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Sampada posted a review at 2010-01-11 10:26:40.
(Language: English)
Any student of literature cannot help but listen to Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye be mentioned by the teachers, for it is a modern classic. What happens in such a situation, is that you get the know the book really well and don’t really feel the need to read it. In dire situations, even if literature students can make a quick one-line summary of a book, it will save them. That’s what I had been doing with regard to this book, until I saw it staring back at me at the library and seemed to mock me into reading it. Well, how can one not obey the words of Mama Morrison (she’s my grandmother, in my head) It is difficult for a lay person like me to describe the power that resides in the words of Morrison. For lack of any better adjectives, I call her writing lyrical. The prose reads like a song, and the book becomes an epic poem, albeit about common people. If you haven’t heard it before, The Bluest Eye is about a young girl named Pecola, who defines beauty with the blueness of little girl’s eyes. Admittedly the ugliest little girl by the other characters in the book – Pecola has black skin and a curly mop of head. All Pecola wants is to have blue eyes, which in her innocent head, will make her look beautiful like other girls she knows. But the story does not stop there. There are many layers, many characters, that Morrison weaves together. Each have their own story, their own tragedy, their own demons to exorcise. There are no villains – there are only humans, capable of making mistakes, and sometimes even capable of ruining others lives. In spite of the fact that these characters are essentially human, they are memorable. Pecola’s mother Pauline who thinks she is a religious hero as far as her marriage to Cholly is concerned; Cholly and his childhood memories; Soaphead’s twisted logic about sex and God; the narrator and her sister – all of them have an unfailing voice that rings clear in the readers’ head long after they have finished the book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-02-28 04:10:10.
(Language: English)
Toni Morrison's debut novel begins with a black girl, by the name of Pecola Breedlove, who prays to God to transform her brown, almond shaped eyes into the baby blues found in the eyes of a white child. Her debut novel is a striking achievement, much like her subsequent works. The Bluest Eye is a story about soicetie's standards of beauty and why whats not blond and blue isn't considered gorgeous. The mere fact that a young girl of color feels she must pray for blue eyes, shows the mindset not only of society but particularly African American society. She forms this complex because she realizes how all of the baby dolls are white with blue eyes; all of the adults run helplessly to blue eyed, white skinned children, and most importantly how her own mother shunned her in favor of a blond hair, blue eyed child. The writing, of course, is nothing short of impeccable. Toni Morrison shows why she's a Nobel Laureate with all of her works and this debut novel is no different. This is a book that is read in High School classes across the nation but I think it is something that should be cherished by the adult mind. For it is with us that complexes and hatred of certain involuntary characteristic in children begin. We sometimes, without even knowing it, may plant the seed of discontent into the minds of our children. A triumphant work that could be cherished by all.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-28 01:45:14.
(Language: English)
Its about a girl named Pecola who believes that blue eyes and white skin are the only way to be perfect in life. She keeps getting emotionally damaged and because people treat her in such rotten ways she ends up going insane. Its a sad book...but it can be kind of interesting. Pecola likes Shirley Temple and thinks that Shirley Temple is beautiful. There is really no one in the book that is an adult that really treats her like she should be treated...to show her how to respect herself and that being an African American is a good thing to be proud of. This book is about an african american family living in the past (cannot remember what year but it was in the 1900s to 1980s) and I read this book in the beginning of the semester...it was the first book I had to read for an english class in college. Anyways, the book mostly in the beginning focuses on 2 main characters who are sisters and one of the tenants moves in with the two sisters and she ends up going mad/crazy b/c she wishes she had white skin and blue eyes (which is why the book is called "The Bluest Eye"). It's kinda interesting but not the greatest book.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-03-15 02:15:57.
(Language: English)
I have been wanting to read Toni Morrison for a long time. This was the first book of hers I have read. It was okay. Kind of like short stories all intertwined into one. I wanted to like it more than I did. I wanted to have some kind of deep meaningful experience from it. Toni Morrison won the Noble Prize right? I will read more by her. I plan to read Beloved. I haven't gotten around to it yet. If I had liked this book better, I would have read Beloved immediately… -Tricia.
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A Reader posted a review at 2009-01-03 04:06:44.
(Language: English)
Beautifully done. Gives an inside view to life that the privaleged white class, just can't grasp easily. Brought back a horrid memory of my first grade teacher announcing we would have two new students in our class who were "colored" and we needed to be welcoming. The next day these already labled African Americn boys joined our class. Bigotry didn't seem to rear it's ugly head until Valentine's Day. They did not get nearly the number of cards the rest of us did.
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-09-13 06:08:37.
(Language: English)
Holy smokes...the best writer of our time.
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-11-29 01:10:47.
(Language: English)
Not Morrison's strongest work, there are problems with two points she makes through the characters of Cholly and Soaphead Church. In the one case child abuse is given a racist explanation for its origin, an explanation that seems to fall flat to me as too one dimensional. In the other there is an ambiguity around Soaphead Church between his being a molester versus being homosexual, had he the courage. It is unclear what Morrison is trying to do with this character and the ambiguity plays on old stereotypes and myths about homosexuality. If you are starting to read Morrison go for Beloved or Sula which are masterpieces and have some of the greatest prose ever written by an American author--and leave this one for later.
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A Reader posted a review at 2010-11-04 11:30:47.
(Language: English)
Can't wait to read the whole story!
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-02-08 08:56:13.
(Language: English)
Give me the fortune, keep the fame," said my man LouisI agreed, know what he mean because we live the truest lieI asked him why we follow the law of the bluest eyeHe looked at me, he thought about itWas like, "I'm clueless, why?"The question was rhetorical, the answer is horribleOur morals are out of place and got our lives full of sorrowAnd so tomorrow comin later than usualWaitin' on someone to pity usWhile we findin beauty in the hideousThey say money's the root of all evil but I can't tellYouknowhatImean, pesos, francs, yens, cowrie shells, dollar billsOr is it the mindstate that's ill?"
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-06-12 02:18:50.
(Language: English)
I very much felt like an outsider while reading this book. Right away she juxtaposes the "perfect" but simple and happy life of a middle class white family with that of a young Black girl in the 1940s. Likely most of her symbolism was lost to me however the afterward was very enlightening as to why she chose to write the book in seasons, to jump from character to character and to use the style that she did. To get the most out of it I would recommend reading it in a sitting or two. It is worth it for the last two chapters of the book. Warning: there are a few questionable parts, possibly why the book has been banned from some libraries and schools.
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A Reader posted a review at 2011-01-17 12:50:21.
(Language: English)
Yes.
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A Reader posted a review at 2007-06-10 12:33:35.
(Language: English)
AMAZING BOOK! As a extremely dark Afrrican American Woman myself, I could relate to the main character Pecola Breedlove to a T! Toni Morrison did an EXCELLENT job at unearthing the complex that many African Americans put on ourselves and our chiildren. This book in a nut shell is the age old story of, "If your light you're alright, if your black, step back." But this book goes deeper than that, it gets into the pysche of Pecola and the reader really gets into her head. This is Toni Morrison's first novel and she has often be quoted saying that the vocabulary in this book could hav e been better, but I find it adds something to the book. I would recomment this book to everyone! Not to mention its on Oprah's Book Club reading list, so you know it's good!
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A Reader posted a review at 2008-03-17 08:58:09.
(Language: English)
I had known about this book since it was on Oprah's book club but never took the time to pick it up. I am so glad that I did. I loved that Morrison didnt make the speaker the main character. Morrison did a great job at describing the scenes of the the little girls life and the trauma she went through from the understanding of another little girl. The only thing was that I was very annoyed with how it ended. After Pecola got pregnant by her father and lost the baby, you dont know what really happens to Pecola. Years pass and supposedly she had lost her sense of being, but you dont know how Pecolas ever truly feels. That was my only criticism.
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