A review by sinneblommen
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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

5.0

This is my first foray into Toni Morrison, and I get all the praise she gets now, even on this, her debut. The way she writes the intermingling of beauty, poverty, and pain. How much racism affects the lives of Black people in the second quarter of the 20th century (and beyond, and before). The choice to represent the story not chronologically, but through seasons, adds a lot of heart to it, because when looking back at my own childhood, I mostly see things in the context of the season, not the exact year or date. 
This book is rough, there are some topics and scenes which may be very triggering, they're brutal in their honesty, written so well, but that also made me have to step away for a little bit. To gather myself and come back later, but that is oke. 
I do get what Morrison says about this novel in the afterword, you can tell this is her first work and she did not achieve the "sharing of a secret through whispers" atmosphere she wanted, so I am excited to read more by her. 
Also this book made me spend way too much money on annotating supplies, because I underlined so many paragraphs that I need a system. One of my favourites was one about a Black man in a park trying to open up a watermelon while looking like God, but no, he is black, so he must be the Devil, but we want this devil rather than the blue-eyed god.  
Expand filter menu Content Warnings