Welcome to Litsy!

The first book for #withthebanned2025 is tagged. Anyone can join this group read hosted by @jadams89 Original post:
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2804229

The first book up for #WiththeBanned is Toni Morrison‘s The Bluest Eye. We will start reading January 1st! You can read a chapter a day or however you like. Just let me know if you want to be added to the tag list! #WTB2025

I‘ll repost this closer to January, but I wanted to make sure everyone had time to get their copy with the holidays.

A poetic book that I found disturbing. There was one scene that I wished I hadn't read, + my heart broke for poor Pecola, a victim in so many ways. I stumbled as a poetic description of growing plants changed into how effective they were at various stages to hit a child. The scene where pecola's father is humiliated by white men during a sexual act is painful.The writing is incredible, the themes important, but I would struggle to read it again.

Excellent and heart breaking

It took me about half the book to really understand and enjoy this authors writing style but once I did just wow. I can see why she is so highly praised. I'll want to reread this in the future so I can truly enjoy the genius of this book.

I love Toni Morrison books 💙

#Controversial 👁️💙

#AboutABook… 📚📖📒📘📕📗📙📓

#BookNerd 🤓💙📚

I‘m sorry, this was her FIRST NOVEL!? Hang it up, everybody else, b/c dang. I know Morrison is going to chew up my soul and spit it out, but I can‘t help but keep coming back for more. Every story in here is painful. You see Pecola through a child‘s narrative. That‘s where Morrison‘s magic lies: her ability to weave and manipulate language. It‘s beautifully written, but it‘s also mean and hard and angry. As it should be. 240/1,001 #1001Books

How can you describe this book as anything more than a masterpiece? Nearly 55 years after it was first published, Morrison's story of Pecola is unforgettable and tragic, one that everyone should experience at least once. Everytime I read a Morrison book, I come away with a different perspective, insight, another "aha" moment, and The Bluest Eye is one that hits me that way with each rereading.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I have had this book on my shelf for years and finally picked it up. However I ended up listening to it when I find out Toni Morrison was the narrator. Listening to her lovely, melodious voice unspool Pecola‘s story using language that is beyond beautiful but speaking about such horrors is at times unsettling and uncomfortable as it should be when speaking about harsh realities.

Stunning in its terrible way.

🙇‍♀️

Morrison‘s first novel is a stunner—profound, raw, honest, real…I could go on and on. Life with all its ups and downs, it‘s mundanity, it‘s hopes and heartbreaks leaps from the pages as we read the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, who dreams of having blond hair and blue eyes, features that she believes will make her pretty, allow her to fit in. Somehow this was the first Morrison book I‘ve read. It definitely won‘t be the last.

60s and sunny in November? I‘ll take it! Starting the tagged book this morning, another one that I can‘t believe I haven‘t read…Going to remedy that right now.

#OutAndAbout #ReadingOnTheTrain #SpringInNovember

Technically a re-read but I was in high school the last timeI read it (30+ years ago 😳) and not much remained beyond a Black girl's desire for blue eyes. A complex novel that shows understanding and empathy for even the worst of humanity's acts, of which Black girls are often the victim. Morrison's writing is beautiful and brutal. Even in her first novel, her artistic vision is undeniable. I read it as part of a deep dive into Morrison 👇

How could this possibly be Morrison‘s first book? It is incredibly well done. 😍

“He does not see her, because for him there is nothing to see. How can a fifty-two-year-old white immigrant storekeeper with the taste of potatoes and beer in his mouth, his mind honed on the doe-eyed Virgin Mary, his sensibilities blunted by a permanent awareness of loss, see a little black girl? Nothing in his life even suggested that the feat was possible, not to say desirable or necessary.”

A harrowing examination of the racism underpinning society's notions of beauty. I feel I should say more about it, but the writing is poetry and left me with more feelings than words.

Brutal and devastating.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

WHOA! I was not prepared for the BRUTALITY of this book nor the extremely graphic sexual abuse depicted. Just heartbreaking. Absolutely gutted by this book. I can‘t say I “enjoyed” reading this one, but it‘s definitely a powerful piece of writing. Does this belong in a classroom? I‘m not sure it‘s right for every student but it certainly is the RIGHT place to explore the themes of poverty, inequality, cruelty and damaging beliefs.

Another book that seems fitting to read for #BannedBooks #TitlesAndTunes #Blues
#LetFreedomRead #BannedBookWeek

@BarbaraBB please add Beautiful Scars by Merry Clayton to our playlist

It never occurs to her that, if in her sleep, her hand hangs over the edge of the bed, something will crawl out from under it and bite her fingers off. I sleep near the wall, because that thought has occurred to me.

library haul :)

Why? Why have I waited so long?

Beloved on audio, read by the author, was staggering. One of the most emotionally impactful works I‘ve experienced. This one is no less.

this book is absolutely gut-wrenching. Morrison shows the vulnerability of children so well, and aims (I think) to show the psychological complexity of humans, and how we‘re driven by motivations, sometimes self-less, misguided, or just cruel. She doesn‘t aim to humanize the horrible people in this book, just explain their existence. I feel so emotionally heavy after reading this. Please please PLEASE look up trigger warnings for this book

Not my favorite Morrison, but I love just reading the words she puts together.

This book follows Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, as she nears puberty during the 1940s in Lorain, Ohio. With her newfound friends Claudia and Frieda, she learns the truth behind her poverty, 'ugliness' and misfortunes in life. If you enjoy books that explore themes of beauty, conformity, race, gender etc. you will enjoy this book. A theme in this book is how external forces affect internal struggles, because the girls battle-

How can a book break you in just the first two pages?

Reading through the books currently being challenged at my local library. All these wanna-be book banners are doing is expanding my TBR pile.

Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye because she was “interested in talking about black girlhood”. It seems sadly inevitable that it would end up a foundational text about the impact of Euro-centric beauty standards and self-loathing. She also said her ‘job‘, as she saw it, was to “rip that veil drawn over proceedings too terrible to relate”, which she certainly achieved. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/the-bluest-eye-toni-morrison/

One of the saddest books I‘ve read in a long time. Read as part of Banned Book Challenge.

📖The Bluest Eye
🖋Charles Bukowski
📺Barney Miller
🎤David Bowie
🎼Blitzkreig Bop -The Ramones
#manicmonday #LetterB @CBee
Everyone play! My Monday has been a bit manic .😀

Another intense, deeply emotional story from Tony Morrison; the first she told to the world. The heart of the story is something that still happens and you don‘t have to look far to see it. A story of poverty, class, abuse, white supremacy and how all these impacted one little girl forever. A story true, yet banned. Read it, pass it on, and uplift Black girls and Black womxn. Black is beautiful. Black is to be celebrated.

I did not know writing until I read Toni Morrison for the first time. Ms. Morrison encouraged all of us to read and learn from her books and while I‘m just beginning to discover the talent and the power of Ms. Morrison I am haunted and enchanted by her characters and their lives.

Reading my way through Morrison this year. This was her first published book. I appreciate how her themes both evolve and stay grounded in the same topics. Her writing is much easier to understand the deep meanings now that I have read a few of her works.

The Bluest Eyes is Toni Morrison‘s first book. It‘s about a girl in Ohio that wishes her eyes to be blue like the blonde haired white girls because they are beautiful, and clean unlike how she feels. It was very moving and emotional. There are some triggering topics that were a little uncomfortable to read, but still a good read.

3 out of 5. Good prose but how is this a literature book for middle and high school students?! I think its too traumatic for young minds.

#OnThisDay in 1931, Chloe Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio. When fellow students at Howard University had trouble pronouncing Chloe, she took a nickname based off her baptismal name "Anthony", and went by Toni from then on. One of the first Black editors at Random House, she championed the work of other Black Authors before releasing her own work and becoming the first African American recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature #HistoryGetsLIT

This was my first Toni Morrison book. It was beautifully written.

This book was as captivating as it was chilling. A moving piece that highlights the effects of internalized racism on a young girl.

On the surface, a story of a little black girl who wishes for the epitome of white beauty standards: blue eyes. I found it really thought provoking, a lesson in intergenerational trauma and betrayals, and revealing of the subtle, implicit biases in society and in myself. I loved the writing. Powerful and painful. 9/10

amazing
i love toni morrison but a lot of her books don‘t get to the point until the end but her writing is always beautiful and inspiring

Thank you @melissajayne for the wonderful #wintersolisticeswap package. I am looking forward to reading these books and the tea sounds delicious. I don‘t have my tree up yet, but once it is up the ornament will be going on. Thank you
@Chrissyreadit @sprainedbrain

This is the third book by Toni Morrison that I‘ve read. Her writing is good, granted, but I find her stories over-layered, inaccessible, and all over the place. This particular book is very segmented and that made it hard for me to focus. The topic of this book is interesting so I had very high expectations on how she would navigate it and what answers she had to offer but unfortunately she didn‘t do that for me.

⚠️https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southlake-texas-anti-racist-book-school-library-rcna2734

'“One of the questions we‘re supposed to ask is ‘Does the writer have a neutral stance on the topic?‘” the teacher said. “Well, if you are Toni Morrison, how can you have a neutral stance toward racism? Now history is being depicted through this rose-colored lens, and all of this is creating a chilling effect that‘s going to hurt our students.”'

I can confirm that this novel hurt my feelings in all the ways I expected it to and more. Its measured examination of how trauma is accumulated and internalised is thoughtful, and most importantly confronting. It‘s basically a perfect novel.

💔