Rating: 
Summary: A Touching Tragedy
Review: Brought to life by Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye is an extremely powerful story that tackles some of the difficult challenges people face to this day. I thought the tale was an unforgettable one. Toni Morrison uses just enough detail to let The Bluest Eye stick out in a person's mind for a lifetime. The way the author writes allows a person to understand things very clearly.
The Bluest Eye is the story of Pecola Breedlove, a very unfortunate looking, young black girl living in Ohio in the early 1900's. Pecola's one main wish in life is to have blue eyes, hence the title of the book. She spends her entire childhood praying for these blue eyes so she may look like Shirley Temple and the other blonde haired, blue eyed, white girls in school. Throughout the story, are small tales of Pecola's family past, and explanations of why her life is so horrible. The various tales are written in block form, though, and therefore are very easily distinguishable from one another. As I read this book, I was saddened by the horrific events that this poor girl has to encounter, and shocked by the way people treated African American girls in the past. This story relates to many problems teenagers, adults and children still have now days in our society. Racism, family problems and loving your heritage are highly discussed issues in this book.
I would recommend The Bluest Eye to anyone interested in reading books that tell true life stories. Though I thoroughly enjoyed this book, not everyone will. If you are not the type of person drawn into stories that may make you feel depressed or upset at the way things used to be, then I would not tell you to read this book. To like this book, you have to enjoy reading back to what things were like a couple decades ago, and the hardships people went through in public situations and at home.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful novel
Review: 'The bluest eye' was Toni Morrison's debut novel, and it was first published in 1970. 'The bluest eye' is a tragic, heartbreaking story. We meet the 11-year-old black girl Pecola Breedlove, and her world - filled with hatred and racism. Her story is not a happy one - her brothers have run away from home, and her drunkard father has sexually abused her. Pecola believes that if she only had blonde hair and blue eyes, all her other problems will go away' The characters are all very well developed, and one has to care deeply for them. The symbolism is easy to understand, and Morrison's prose is beautiful, subtle, and unique. This is a novel that leaves you thinking, wondering about the world we live in. Toni Morrison has quite rightfully won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize. 'The bluest eye', was the third novel I read by Toni Morrison. Honestly, 'The bluest eye' is not her masterpiece (I think that the book 'Song of Solomon' is her best novel) but it is certainly worth reading! An enjoyable read!
Rating:
Summary: Everything I hoped for...
Review: This book is an excellent read. Morrison captures the life of young Pecola Breedlove as if it were her own. The descriptions are vivid and one could imagine oneselves in Pecola's place, dreaming for blue eyes. Morrison is an excellent author and one couldn't tell this is her first book. The lives of the characters appear to jump out at you and you find yourslf engulfed inside the story.
Rating: 
Summary: The Eye of the Beholder
Review: I believe that Toni Morrison is one of the most challenging authors America has ever produced. She fails to ever talk down to her audience, but rather, challenge us to aspire to higher levels of meaning by writing challenging literature of the highest quality. Thus, "The Bluest Eye" falls into that category. As her first novel, Morrison herself suggests that at the time of her writing this, she was not advanced enough to handle the language, and therefore, finds it somewhat clumsy. The book I read was incredibly rich and deep, inspirational and chilling. We find one narrator of the story, a little girl named Claudia, retelling the events of a another black girl in her small Ohio town, and the horrible things that Pecola had to endure. Described by nearly every character in the novel as "ugly", Pecola's only wish is to have blue eyes, so that she can attain the societal expectation of "attractiveness". Pecola comes from a warped, unsupportive family, which thereby shapes Pecola's viewpoint and outlook on her own life. One thing Morrison does so efeectively in her novels is switch narrators whenever she sees fit. At times, Claudia tells us the story; at others, a third person narrator allows us to soar above the story and get more important information that a little girl may not be privvy too. At at times, we even learn about the events of the story through women who merely gossip the story. The effect allows us, the reader, to garner more informaton, some of it in personal ways, to allow us a grander sense of this story. Morrison's literature, in every sense of the word, challenges the reader at every turn. This is not a book to read lightly, or just dabble in. Because of her writing, and her writing style, she is able to make grand stories out of the most ordinary people; to give voice to those characters in literature most often overlooked or marginalized in our culture. Morrison must keep writing to allow those voices to ring clear, and add to the cacophany of voices that make America as strong as it is.
Rating:
Summary: something about this book...
Review: Was I moved by this novel? Yes. Is Toni Morrison a literary genius? Yes. Did this book deserve the Nobel Prize? Yes. I have read quite a few of the reviews for this book and there is a contention of people who seem to believe this novel was written simply to trash whites and victimize blacks. While I do believe there is a certain degree of anger directed at the Caucasian race in this novel, one must take a step back and look at everything more objectively. Yes, white people were bad in this novel... but were the blacks so good? Surely one must realize nearly every black person we meet in this novel is extremely flawed in some way. I think it is quite pretentious to believe that Toni Morrison simply sat down one day and decided to write a book about how bad blacks have it. When I started reading this book, I thought it would be about racial identity among African-Americans. When I finished, however, I realized the message this book contains deals with beauty in general. Whether you are black or white, you can appreciate the moral of this novel: Accept who you are. After all, if Pecola's eyes had really turned blue, what then? She would have looked strange. No one would have loved her any more. I believe Toni Morrison did a fine job of showing her thoughts on the subject of race, identity, and individual beauty. Everyone ought to read this book.
Rating:
Summary: This book was so heartbreaking
Review: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a book about an African American girl named Pecola Breedlove who believes that she is the ugliest girl in the world, and is treated as such. This book is set in 1941, and cute little Shirley Temple is what America is in love with. Pecola believes that the only way anyone can be beautiful is if he or she had blonde hair and blue eyes. Pecola wishes that her eyes would turn so blue that anytime someone walked past her, they would look at how beautiful she is. Toni Morrison takes the depressing thought that beauty is blonde hair and blue eyes, and gives it a cruel and tragic twist. She introduces you to where Pecola is now, and goes back through her life, the life of her mother, and the life of her father. She reveals the dark side to the readers in just little enough amounts that you can't guess what is going to happen next, making you read the next chapter just to find out what else the book might reveal. This made the book so exciting to read with twists and turns around every page. The way Morrison describes everything, it's like watching a movie, without the sticky floors and talking people. Over all, this was an exciting book to read. The plot is so unique that it immediately catches your eye, and keeps your attention throughout the whole book.
Rating:
Summary: Here's a book that makes you think...
Review: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a great book to read for the philosophers of any age. If you are a person who likes to read "between the lines" and one who likes to think about the meaning rather than having it be given to you, then this is a book for you! Toni Morrison is an award-winning author who writes with details, examples, and most of all, heart. She writes about subjects that she is familiar with- such as the treatment and discrimination of black people in the earlier days.
In this book, Morrison describes the life of a girl named Pecola and her family who have been ill-fated from the start. She shows the contrast between the way Pecola is treated in her family and in society in general. For this reason and others, she desperately dedicates her life, prayers, and dreams to transform herself into someone that looks like Shirley Temple. Due to her unfortunate physical appearance, she is mistreated gruesomely by her family and others. She is raped and impregnated by her own father and when she reaches puberty, she is whipped and punished for misunderstanding.
I recommend this book to people who like heart-felt stories and are not afraid to be taken in by the atrocity of truth. The book is a quick-read that is full of events which will not bore you. I enjoyed reading it a lot as well as learning some facts about history that I would have otherwise been negligent to. So pick up this book and open up your eyes, because there is lots to think about!!!
Rating:
Summary: African American Women and How They See Themselves
Review: African American Women and How They See Themselves
(A critical review of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye) One of Toni Morrison's greatest works is The Bluest Eye. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize winning author and has written novels on African Americans and their position in America for several years. The Bluest Eye in particular, depicts how African American women see themselves and how they see white women. Toni Morrison tells the story through a character named Claudia MacTeer. Claudia is very young while she tells the story of herself, her sister Frieda, Pauline and Cholly Breedlove, and most of all, Pecola Breedlove. As she grows older, her realization of Pecola's terrible fate grows and her empathy for her fills the reader with the same empathy. Claudia is perfect for the narrator because she is both young and open-minded. Although she is unsure of whether her view is correct, her view seems more correct because her mind is not filled with the corruption of the other characters. Claudia, unlike the other black women in the story, is very comfortable with who she is. She likes how she looks, and instead of adoring Shirley Temple cups and cute, little, white baby dolls like Frieda and Pecola; she despises them, and rips the dolls heads off. Throughout the novel, Toni Morrison shows several messages that whiteness is superior. Besides the obsession with Shirley Temple and white baby dolls, light-skinned Maureen is more loved and accepted then the other little black girls. The idealization of white beauties in movies and Pauline Breedlove's preference for the little white girl she works for over her daughter are still more ways in which she shows America's obsession with white. Even grown women depict the views towards white beauty. Pauline Breedlove, although saying she will love Pecola forever, views her as ugly and, as said before, learns to love the little white girl she cares for more than her own daughter. Geraldine, a woman who has grown up hating blacks and regards herself as a "clean black" as opposed to those "dirty niggers," despises Pecola and looks at other black children with disgust. Above all, Pecola suffers the most from this hatred of blacks. She becomes confused with the way people treat her and begins to believe that beauty brings love. The one thing she wishes for, above all else, is blue eyes, with blue eyes, the bluest eyes in the world, she believes she will be beautiful, and in turn find love and happiness. Toni Morrison does a terrific job showing how black women view themselves compared to those "white beauties," making her audience shudder from disgust, and weep from the terrible realization of what life once was like, and still is in some parts. I loved the way Toni Morrison presented The Bluest Eye and will never forget how much her writing influenced me. She's done a great job affecting people with her writing in the past, and it is still affective today.
Rating: 
Summary: This book did not fulfill my expectations...
Review: The theme of racial discrimination between Blacks and Whites in America is often issued by authors but their texts seldom contain such a violent brutality.
Toni Morrison describes a young black girl named Pecola that grows up in the lowest social class in the society at that time. Her family situation underlines the cliché of dirty black people: Her father is an alcoholic that beats his wife who works for a white rich family and seems to love their blond, cute, curly haired girl more than her own children.
As a consequence Pecola does not find her place in the world and feels because of her outer appearance disliked. The fact that she gets raped by his father and her wish of blue eyes to be beloved by the adults concludes a girl that goes mad in the end.
Toni Morrison uses a very colloquial language that is at first for me, as my mother language is not english, difficult to understand but second I also do not like this style of writing. In my opinion, there are too many violent and even pornographic scenes for example when Pecolas father sleeps for the first time with a girl or when she gets raped. This is only disgusting and these explicit describtions are not necessary to underline the message the author wants to make.
Obviously, this book is important for black literatur but for me it was not very interesting to read. It is just nearly the same as in all books containing the black/white conflict where the Whites are the bad boys and the Blacks have to suffer under them. Even Pecolas father who is so cruel to his environment behaves only like that because he is made by the Whites to the person he is.
I had high expectations before I read this novel because of the Nobel Prize of Literature it won but unfortunately they did not get fulfilled.
Rating:
Summary: The Bluest Eye
Review: Pecola Breedlove came from a difficult background. She believed herself to be ugly and wasn't ever told any different from anyone. The different people she encountered throughout her life only reminded her of her ugliness, and treated her with contempt. The difficulties she encountered only continued at home with a drunken father, a distant mother, and a run away brother. But, through everything her only wish was for blue eyes, the bluest eyes. Believing that the blue eyes would make her beautiful.
The story of Pecola really brings forth emotions such as anger, sadness, disgust, and sympathy within the reader, it is because of this I enjoyed the novel so much. Any novel that can have a reader experience so much emotion has got to be good. The writing style that Mrs. Morrison uses keeps the reader wanting to know more. I also enjoyed the fact that there was a good lesson to be learned from this story of this young girl that encounters so many trials. However, even though I enjoyed the novel there were a few parts that were a bit descriptive and I could have done without but I realize that it contributed to the completed work in some way.
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