It is hard to decide whether the abuse of metaphor or the abuse of children and animals is more distasteful in The Bluest Eye. From a so-called classic of black American literature, I would have hoped to have taken away something other than revulsion.

The Outsiders was the perfect assigned middle school read, illustrating lessons without shoving them down your throat, and it remains a good read a decade later.

Je préférerais dire que j'ai lu le livre mais ne l'ai pas apprécié. Cependant, ce n'est pas le cas. C’est sans fin, sans point, sans morale. Comme je l'ai trouvé illisible, il serait plus utile comme plateau. Je m'attendais à être attiré par le monde de Maupassant, pas à le regarder comme un bâtiment en feu.

I certainly know more about astrophysics than I did before (nothing at all), but the book is weak in structure and strays away from the primary topic too much.

If you find an essay that resonates more strongly with every read, stick to it!

I like a vignette as much as the next guy, and so was surprised by my disappointment with this book.

There are some distracting typos and other errors in the book, but now I know who Mulholland was and a good deal more about the history of a great city. Is Los Angeles justified in its appropriation of water in central California? I am too biased to answer.

I haven’t laughed so hard reading a book since A Tale of Two Cities, and The Sellout couldn’t be more different. This book should be required reading for black Angelenos.

I had really high hopes from others’ description of this book and was hugely disappointed. The energy and effort that went into the prose is plainly evident, but it came off to me as grandiloquent and flat.

Ng tells a beautiful story of growth amidst villainy in a utopian, if muted, community.