Stephanie Spines

Brilliant and painful. This was my first read by Toni Morrison, though I'm kind of embarassed to admit that.Toni Morrison is a master of prose. She paints a picture before your eyes of little Pecola, a girl described as ugly but also somehow tragically beautiful. It was so heartwrenching to watch Pecola suffer at no fault of her own and to see it all fall down at the end. I didn't find it "too graphic" as others did. It was just a sad story; A sad "reality".At the end of this day, this read is an amazingly powerful commentary on the impact of racism on young black women. Pecola was made out to be ugly by everybody around her, the same messages that society imparts feverishly on black women today from every angle. And it was this that caused Pecola to break. The need she felt, though a construction in itself, to fit into racist constructions of beauty ended up costing a huge price.Heartbreaking.