The Bluest Eye: Summary and book reviews of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, plus links to an excerpt from The Bluest Eye and a biography of Toni Morrison.

The Bluest Eye, published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who 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. Selected as Oprah Winfrey's April 2000 Book of the Month. Republished by Random House in April 2000

Media Reviews

Newsweek This story commands attention, for it contains one black girl's universe.   The New York Times - John Leonard Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye is an inquiry into the reasons why beauty gets wasted in this country. The beauty in this case is black. [Miss Morrison's prose is] so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry...I have said 'poetry,' but The Bluest Eye is also history, sociology, folklore, nightmare and music.   The New Yorker - L.E. Sissman A fresh, close look at the lives of terror and decorum of those Negroes who want to get on in a white man's world...A touching and disturbing picture of the doomed youth of [the author's] race.   Detroit Free Press - Gary Blonston A profoundly successful work of fiction...so controlled, so good...with the same clean precision that Sherwood Anderson used to carve his troubled little town...Taut and understated, harsh in its detachment, sympathetic in its truth...it is an experience.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Cloggie Downunder
hard to relate to
The Bluest Eye is the first novel by American author Toni Morrison. It is set in 1941 in the small town of Lorain, Ohio, and tells the story of an 11-year-old Negro girl, Pecola Breedlove, who becomes pregnant to her father Cholly. Pecola’s family...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Ditra Coleman
Other Peoples Feelings
I have read "The Bluest Eye" about 15 times since I first read it at 28 years of age..... I am now 49. It is hard to sum up such a heartfelt piece of literature. The story and meaning of this book goes far beyond the words on the pages....   Read More

Rated of 5 by Ditra
TOUCHED
I first read The Bluest Eye about 20 years ago. I have read it about 10 more times since. I grew up in the 60's and 70's along with three younger sisters and an older brother. This book touched home for me on soooo many levels. Though both of...   Read More

Rated of 5 by afroman
It was o.k
The bluest eye displays extremely well the toils and pitfalls of being black in 1940's America. Although slavery was abolished at this point, stigma was still in place for being black. The struggle that Pecola faces in the novel is one that can be...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Joshua Lim
The Bluest Eye
A deep read, but beautiful with literary metaphor.

Rated of 5 by Joshua Lim
The Bluest Eye
This book is not easy to read, but those who persist on will appreciate the beauty of language that the author had woven. It has beautiful use of metaphor and for those who like poetry, they will enjoy it tremendeously.

...19 More Reader Reviews

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