Rebecca vs The Bluest Eye: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Drama, Fiction
Rebecca
“Suddenly I saw a clearing in the dark drive ahead, and a patch of sky, and in a moment the dark trees had thinned, the nameless shrubs had disappeared, and on either side of us was a wall of colour, blood-red, reaching far above our heads. We were amongst the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery. The woods had not prepared me for th”
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With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the…
The Bluest Eye
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Each night Pecola prayed for blue eyes. In her eleven years, no one had ever noticed Pecola. But with blue eyes, she thought, everything would be different. She would be so pretty that her parents would stop fighting.…
Side by side
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- The Bluest Eye is the quickest read — about 3 hours vs 6 for Rebecca.
- Rebecca has the widest readership — 760384 ratings behind its score.
- Rebecca runs the darker storyline; The Bluest Eye stays the lighter read.
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How to choose
Scores by source
| Rebecca | The Bluest Eye | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 4.2 (760384) | 4.1 (320415) |
| Hardcover | 4.1 (814) | 4.0 (359) |
| Google Books | 4.0 (1) | 3.5 (27) |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (212) | 4.5 (1011) |
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Reception
| Rebecca | The Bluest Eye | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 760384 | 320415 |
| Editions | 200 | 63 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 820325 | 416527 |
| Reading it now | 30350 | 17627 |
| Written reviews | 55745 | 26498 |
| Wikipedia attention | 41922 | 31274 |
| Pages | 366 | 195 |
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Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: Rebecca or The Bluest Eye?
Rebecca has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Rebecca 4.2/5, The Bluest Eye 4.1/5).
Which is shorter to read: Rebecca or The Bluest Eye?
The Bluest Eye is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: The Bluest Eye (195 pages, ≈ 3 h 37 m); Rebecca (366 pages, ≈ 6 h 47 m).
Which is harder to read: Rebecca or The Bluest Eye?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — Rebecca: Challenging; The Bluest Eye: Challenging.
Have both books been made into films?
Rebecca: 5 film adaptations; The Bluest Eye: no film adaptation on record.