A review by carriepond
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

challenging reflective sad slow-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

4.5

I have decided to make a concerted effort to re-read more books this year, and picked up Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye again partly based on my experience of re-reading Sula for a book club and noticing how different parts of the book resonated more with me years later than when I first read it in college.

Long hours she sat, looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike . . . It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights-- if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.

It has been so long since I last read The Bluest Eye that I was really approaching it almost from a blank slate-- other than the concept, I had largely forgotten the plot (even very major and disturbing plot points). I am very glad I re-read this novel because it brilliantly explores internalized anti-blackness, or as Morrison puts it in her foreword, "the damaging internalization of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze." It is a heartbreaking and tragic novel that, like every book by Toni Morrison I've read, is expertly crafted. 
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