#29 The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

Another sad book, that's two in a row. This is a shorter book mostly about a girl named Pecola. Pecola isn't loved by anyone. She is poor and isn't pretty. Her one wish is for blue eyes, because she thinks everyone will love her if she had blue eyes. Her father is a drunk who dispisses his children and wife. Her mother is resentful of her husband and delights in only beautiful things. Because she wishes for beautiful things, she enjoys working for a rich white family, and taking care of their beautiful little daughter.

Pecola is picked on by the kids at school, and just about everyone she meets. I was suprised at the fact that young black children used derogatory black terms against each other, as if they were not black themselves. Let me clarify that a bit. I'm not talking about the way black children and even adults use derogatory black terms to their friends in present time. In this book they use them as insults and ways to hurt each other's feelings. It's really sad that the world had showed them such disrespect for black people that they felt they should treat each other with that same disrespect.

Pecola is rapped by her father and she gets pregnant. I was suprised that whole community shunned her for this. They gossiped about her and how horrible she was to get pregnant by her father. It was a really eye-opening book to the ways of life for blacks around the 1950s and 1060s. There were many lines in this book that stood out to me. If I had been reading it and not listening to it, I would probably have 10 or more quotes to put in this review, but in stead I have none.