My first Toni Morrison book is also her first published novel. I plan on reading all of her bibliography in order.

I was not disappointed. I enjoyed this sad sad book. The theme of internal racism is prevalent throughout the book, even in the title. I marked so many pages that really spoke to me. It is interesting to see that internalized anti-blackness has not changed at all. The only gripe I had with the novel was the chapter layout. Since I couldn't give the novel my full attention and had to leave it for days at a time, I found the narration switch from third to first person was somewhat difficult to follow at times.

brief thoughts and quotes:

Their [Breedlove] ugliness was unique. No one could have convinced them that they were not relentlessly and aggressively ugly...The rest of the family... wore their ugliness.

The character of Mrs. Breedlove and her religious fervour was humorous while also showing the hypocrisy of many Christians. As stated in the novel, she's not interested in Christ the Redeemer but Christ the Judge. She does not want any salvation for her wretched, ugly husband, rather she wants to see him struck down. She holds no mercy or sympathy for her children, all of it is wrapped up in her employer's kid.

Pecola hurt my heart, every situation involving her made me frustrated and sad.

Every character in the story is flawed, badly. I loved this book because of that reason. It's real sh*t.

"I felt a need for someone to want the black baby to live-- just to counteract the universal love of white baby dolls, Shirley Temples, and Maureen Peals."

side note: I might be hallucinating but I'm pretty sure that's a scrapbook or scrapbooks were mentioned in this novel (unfortunately I can't find the page/quote). I recently learned that scrapbooks were a way for African Americans to document their own history and create a counter archive and historical narrative to the popular one. If you want to know more about this phenomenon I would suggest checking out Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance