Jan 31

Jan 31 The Bluest Eye

Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Vintage Anchor
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife.

A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison's virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.

Full Review

“I had only one desire: to dismember [the white baby doll]. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me.”

I am not fit to “review” a Toni Morrison novel, so here are my impressions instead. I am unsurprised to be blown away, but I’m extra floored that this was her first novel. The maturity in her prose is unparalleled.

The Bluest Eye alternates through several points of view, but the main one comes from a young Black girl named Claudia. The plot, however, revolves around another young Black girl named Pecola, who we learn in the first chapter becomes pregnant with her abusive father’s child. We also get glimpses into each of Pecola’s parents’ backstories, as well as several neighbors from the community.

I knew that this book would be heavy and heartbreaking, and it was. But I found myself nearing the end, waiting for the hammer to drop. And just when I stopped expecting it — drop it did. Things that impressed me to my knees: the return to the marigolds, the use of the children’s book text, the tiniest moments of prose that cut like knives.

I can’t wait to continue my journey through Morrison’s fiction.