This historical fiction book by Toni Morrison is published by Vintage books, a division of Random House. The Bluest Eye is written for ages 14 and up. The age range reflects readability and not necessarily content appropriateness.

In 1941 in Lorain, Ohio, 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove, a black girl, prays to have blue eyes so that she will be beautiful, similar to white children. She is despised as ugly and wonders how she can find someone to love her. Pecola's mother, Pauline, and father, Cholly, are physically and verbally abusive to each other, Pecola and her older brother, Sammy.

Cholly's aunt raised him after his mother abandoned him. His first sexual encounter becomes a terrifying experience because two white men discover what he and a girl are doing, and they force the two to continue the sexual act at gunpoint. Instead of hating the men, Cholly directs his hatred toward women. At age 14, he decides to search for his father. His father rejects him, and Cholly begins a descent into a world where only his desires and pleasures hold any interest for him. It's in this state that he meets and marries Pauline.