Summary and Reviews of Beloved by Toni Morrison

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I24 WAS SPITEFUL. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughter Denver were its only victims. The grandmother, Baby Suggs, was dead, and the sons, Howard and Buglar, had run away by the time they were thirteen years old--as soon as merely looking in a mirror shattered it (that was the signal for Buglar); as soon as two tiny hand prints appeared in the cake (that was it for Howard). Neither boy waited to see more; another kettleful of chickpeas smoking in a heap on the floor; soda crackers crumbled and strewn in a line next to the doorsill. Nor did they wait for one of the relief periods: the weeks, months even, when nothing was disturbed. No. Each one fled at once--the moment the house committed what was for him the one insult not to be borne or witnessed a second time. Within two months, in the dead of winter, leaving their grandmother, Baby Suggs; Sethe, ...

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What audience would you recommend The Bluest Eye to? Is there another book or author you feel has a similar theme or style?
I am probably in the minority, but I'm sorry I would not recommend this to my friends or book club. It addresses tough topics, but the tragedies and depravity were overdone, for my taste. It lacks even a thread of hope. This book may be best read and discussed in a college literature class. I wil...
-Sylvia_L

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Were you familiar with The Bluest Eye before your recent reading of it? If you’d read it before, how has your interpretation or opinion of the novel changed since you first encountered it?
I had never heard of the book previous to seeing it being featured on BookBrowse. I have been thinking about reading Beloved which I am hoping will be a positive experience for me .
-Laurie_L

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Overall, what did you think of The Bluest Eye? (no spoilers, please!)
This was one of the most powerful books I've ever read. If I had to rate it, I'd give it the highest rating possible. First, the writing itself was amazing—I found myself stopping to re-read and underline passage after passage. And Pecola's story was heartbreaking but believable. The pressure to ...
-Judith_G

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In her forward, the author states that she was concerned readers would be led “into the comfort of pitying her rather than into an interrogation of themselves.” She feels she failed. Do you agree? What emotions did you feel on finishing the novel?
I sure wish I'd had the opportunity to discuss this in-depth in a classroom setting when I was younger. We read Baldwin in high school, but very few female authors. I think so many of us would have benefitted from knowing about this book way back then! And it's still benefitting us now! I know Mo...
-kim.kovacs

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