The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME - From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner--a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace.

In Morrison's acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove--an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

Here, Morrison's writing is "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry" (The New York Times).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000TWUTYQ
• ISBN13: 9780307278449
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

The Bluest Eye is a Beautifully Written Story that Captures the Trueness of People's Lives

Toni Morrison is so intentional about her word choice and placement of narrative in her heartbreaking novel. Personally, I was caught off guard several times throughout the novel, knowing full well she intended for this to happen. I will be re-reading this, making sure to catch every whisp of wisdom she places so purposefully into her novel.

Great for young adults

This is one of my favorite books that I've read this year. The timeline of the book may be confusing as the author often changes between first-person narration to third-person pov throughout chapters. The part I love most about this book is how real it feels. The characters are flawed and (SPOILER) there is no happy ending. Morrison did an amazing job bringing readers through the life and struggles of an average black child.