Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

101 reviews

ruthypoo2's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is the first book by Toni Morrison that I've read. Her writing is lovely and lyrical despite the story in this case being told primarily from the perspective of older children and dealing with some genuinely painful and ugly human behavior. Additionally, I listened to the audiobook as the narrator is Toni Morrison, and in this case, I felt it really enhanced the experience hearing a story in the voice of the author.

The Foreward of the book sets the tone by starting with the following, "There can't be anyone, I am sure, who doesn't know what it feels like to be disliked, even rejected, momentarily or for sustained periods of time. Perhaps the feeling is merely indifference, mild annoyance, but it may also be hurt. It may even be that some of us know what it is like to be actually hated - hated for things we have no control over and cannot change."

The primary individual in the story, the one with a common thread throughout, is eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. She's a demure child already broken down by a harsh life of indifferent parents and the taunts of too many bullies, sometimes school children and sometimes family. The most common and reliable narrator in the book is eight-year-old Claudia MacTeer. She and her twelve-year-old sister, Frieda, are as true of friends to Pecola as anyone in her life will be. The story is set in a time right after the Great Depression, as the country is recovering. Claudia shares how her and Frieda's life is comfortable, and they live in a sometimes harsh, but happy and stable home. One day Pecola enters their life and from this point the reader learns about other characters with Claudia as the narrator or via third person narrative with inset narratives, resulting in differing people's experiences at differing points in time. These inset first person narratives give the reader more of the backstory, or formative years, for various characters in the story. I thought this was a great way to create an immersive experience for the reader.

This book deals with many heavy subjects, and chief among them is how young Pecola was dealt a very bad hand in life and ended up accepting as truth that her life was of little value because of the way she was talked to, talked about, treated, and mistreated. Pecola's idea of a perfect life was associated with whiteness and having blue eyes, so maybe if she had blue eyes, she could escape her painful life.

This book really feels like it's a story you're hearing from some intelligent but cautious children living in a complex world where they understand a lot more than you want to believe children that age should know. They're self-sufficient because they have to be and, in many ways, this makes them able to survive the hazards and ugly truth that comes into their lives. While there are really rough edges to this story, the resilience of child narrator Claudia helps make it easier to digest when some characters in the book do not get a happy ending.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Animal death, Incest, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Racism, Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Infidelity, Mental illness, Pregnancy, Death, Alcoholism, Bullying, Classism, Hate crime, Excrement, and Miscarriage

kristenhuck's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, Violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Incest, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Bullying

sailtothemoon's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Racism

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Hate crime, Pedophilia, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Miscarriage and Mental illness

aleksanski's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Incest, Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Rape, Racism, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Abandonment, Bullying, Abortion, Death of parent, and Miscarriage

Minor: Mental illness and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

esther_5's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, Abandonment, Misogyny, and Miscarriage

kimib79's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This is a look at the worst of humanity impacting the innocent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Rape, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Incest, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

karihyuuga's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual harassment, Alcoholism, Bullying, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Racism, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Violence, Mental illness, and Miscarriage

glutenfreemaggie's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

:(

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Incest, Sexual content, Pedophilia, Rape, Racism, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, and Adult/minor relationship

birtelesemann's review against another edition

challenging tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Alcoholism, Miscarriage, Rape, Domestic abuse, Incest, Sexual content, Alcohol, Bullying, Animal death, Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Racism

iarlais's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

One of the strongest works of fiction I've ever read, The Bluest Eye sets out to show how abuse begets abuse, what the psychological impacts of racism are, and what life was like for the non-nuclear family of 20th century America. A narratively unique book, it switches from the perspective of Claudia, an actual character in the novel, to a standard unknown narrator, meaning that the reader switches between seeing the world through a child's eyes, and seeing it through Toni Morrison's own. This gives Claudia's narrative voice more weight, as you feel more pity for a child's innocent view of the world when you are also given the viewpoint of an unrelenting adult, or the viewpoint of a truly vile man like Soaphead Church.

Claudia and Frieda are sympathetic protagonists, but it is Pecola who is the true center of the story. Pecola's well-woven and crushing tale serves to show us the horrifying levels of abuse that permeated the civilisation that she inhabited. The abuse that she received was born out of the racism that reigned over every aspect of American society, from the films that Pauline viewed to the dolls that the three girls looked at. This novel examines this hatred and how it comes to be accepted by many of the characters, how they have unquestioningly internalized it and directed their anger not back at their racist systems and country, but at the ones even further below them in society, like black girls. 

In doing all of this, Morrison packs the book full of character, creating human characters with realistic faults. She shows how some of these faults were forcefully impressed as opposed to them being developed, and how the impacts they have on minds lead to horrific consequences. She shows just how all-powerful American racism is by presenting its presence in all aspects of its society, and makes it clear that oftentimes people will not triumph over it. Such a malevolent, pervading force very much can break its victims, to the point that they can't come back. 

The book is not without its flaws - in my opinion, it could have had a stronger impact had it been longer (Morrison herself notes in an afterword that most people were "touched - but not moved), and I think that its shortness results in most of the characters seeming underdeveloped, as The Bluest Eye has many, and not all can share the spotlight. And yet, it's still a beautiful, depressing, and genuinely important novel that gives a voice to the voiceless. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Incest, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, and Rape

Moderate: Miscarriage and Misogyny

Minor: Bullying