The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison · first published 1970
47% recommend47% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
A novel about a young Black girl's longing for white beauty standards, exploring the impact of racial idealization and rejection.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting. Her father would stop drinking. Her brother would stop running away. If only she could be beautiful. If only people would look at her. When someone finally did, it was her father, drunk. He raped her. Soon she would bear his child...
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My first intro to Morrison was thru 'The Bluest Eye'. Afterwards I read many of her books incl 'Beloved'. I loved all of them. One thing I could however never understand was how a person with such deep insights into the African American experience could…
on “Toni Morrison Has Died” ↗…Winfrey's Favorite: White Oleander by Janet Fitch The Color Purple by Alice Walker A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck For complete list visit http://www.famouspal.com
on “What books would you recommend reading? Why?” ↗if you want a more meaningful understanding of rejection, read toni morrison's the bluest eye
on “Jia Jiang's 100 Days of Rejection” ↗My heart is breaking. Toni Morrison was one of the greatest writers of our time. I loved Beloved, but The Bluest Eye is my favorite.
on “Toni Morrison Has Died” ↗I love reading, but only a handful of books have really changed the way I look at the world. The Bluest Eye was one of them. Minor spoiler: in the bluest eye a young black girl obsesses over a white female doll with blue eyes. Before I read it, I never considered the impact that the idealization of white beauty…
on “Toni Morrison Has Died” ↗I had to read The Bluest Eye in college. That is one book I'll never read again, and that's because it's so brutally honest about the characters' experiences. It's too real. Great book. Highly recommended. I'm afraid to read any…
on “Toni Morrison Has Died” ↗…doubt that she was the greatest living writer until her passing last year. She'll likely always hold that top spot in my mind, no one can compare. Go read "Sula" or "Song of Solomon" or "Beloved" or "The Bluest Eye". Her work will make you a better human.
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗…I do not read a lot of (any) period African-American literature Guess you answered your own question, a hole in your reading preferences is a reflection of you, not society. For the record I read The Bluest Eye in college and it was pretty eye-opening.
Me too. "The Bluest Eye" - in college. It was devastating. I'm glad I read it, even though parts of it were really uncomfortable.
on “Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters” ↗Here are the top most challenged books of 2022 according to the ALA: - "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe - "All Boys Aren't Blue" by George M. Johnson - "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison - "Flamer" by Mike Curato - "Looking for Alaska" by John Green - "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky - "Lawn Boy" by Jonathan Evison - "The Absolutely…
on “Leaked government document shows Spain wants to ban end-to-end encryption” ↗…school". https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2023/01/25/florida-s... > In Pinellas County, that confluence of factors resulted in the removal of prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s first book, “The Bluest Eye,” from all high schools. The district acted after one parent complained about the book in one class at one high school. Some districts are advising teachers to remove their class libraries entirely to…
on “Go Ahead and Ban My Book” ↗…available with no holds or wait times for all BPL cardholders, available through the library's online catalog or Libby app. The titles include: The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, Tomboy by Liz Prince, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones, Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison ...The American Library…
on “Brooklyn Public Library Offers Free ECards to Teens Nationwide Facing Book Bans” ↗> Every school library in the US has 120 copies of this book. This seems improbable. It seems even more unlikely when The Bluest Eye has been banned so often: The ALA placed it on the Top Ten Most Challenged Books Lists for 2006, 2014, 2013, 2020, and 2022. Ultimately, it became the 34th-most banned book in the United States…
on “Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters” ↗…classrooms published within that year on a nationwide scale (outside of specifically librarian association recommendations or something like this, a scholastic books thing). From a brief Wikipedia read, The Bluest Eye was published with Toni Morrison was nearly 40 and didn’t sell well, so it makes no sense why that’s the one taught in schools.
on “Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters” ↗…lover of reading is likely to enjoy it), but if you do, it may just be a few snippets that you might have otherwise missed as it's not “about” Toni Morrison. > [Morrison] Writing my first two books, The Bluest Eye and Sula, I had the anxiety of a new writer who needs to make sure every sentence is exactly the right one. Sometimes that produces a kind of precious, jeweled quality—a tightness, which I particularly…
on “Toni Morrison Has Died” ↗