Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read "The Bluest Eye" for a college class in American Literature. While the basic emotion of the story is important, I did not care for the writing style; it's too disjointed. Pecola is never the speaker. Too much of the book is devoted to descriptions of other characters. The basic theme is a black child looking to be loved in a world that equates love with beauty, and beauty with blond hair and blue eyes. It's very sad. But Pecola is a victim of everyone, including her family, and the storyline jumps around too much. I was also extremely put off by the nauseatingly graphic ways Toni Morrison describes physical living -- from food to illness to sex. This is not a book you can read with a snack in your hand. If you like reading descriptions about snot, phlegm, vomit, swallowing globs of Vicks salve, child rape, animal abuse by angry children, sexual satisfaction produced by loose sanitary napkins, dogs choking on poisoned meat, and preachers who can't resist female children's blossoming bosoms, and an unhappy ending, then this is the book for you.