Reviews for Purple Hibiscus

The average rating for Purple Hibiscus based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-18 00:00:00 TAKASHI MATSUBARA I was biased towards Adichie as an excellent writer because that's what people said. It wasn't the book I originally was going to read by her but it was her first so naturally, I thought I would start at the beginning. I felt so oppressed reading the book but then I realized that was her genius. She never said the word oppression. For the first two-thirds of the book, she never described pain, but all the details made me feel like something was terribly wrong not just at home but also in the country. The oppressive regime. The oppressive father. The oppressive religion. The oppressive heat. It sounds like a depressing story, but it's not. A teenager finds her voice. She learns to laugh. She learns to run and play in a place where purple hibiscus grows. The balance is so joyous despite all of the terrible events that aren't articulated but are still felt by the reader as if one were reading every word. I dug this book even though I didn't understand most of what was going on. I've never been to Nigeria. I couldn't pronounce any of the Igbo. I know little to nothing of the country's history, language, and culture and I loved that she didn't introduce me. It wasn't a welcome to my world story; it was a slice of life that left it up to me to fit into her character's lives. I enjoyed doing the work. There are no literary flaws. The plot turns on a sentence. Tight. Concise. Complex characters. I loved the auntie because I wanted to be like her. I was curious about Jaja. I hated the Mom, but I sympathized with her. I hated the father more, but he was speaking truth for the country against the leadership and he fed so many people and he loved his family the best way he knew how, kind of. He was breaking them because he was broken. I understood why Kambili wanted to make him proud. He was cruel like the white men who had trained him were cruel. So much powerful stuff though such parsimonious words. So much feels so inaccessible for the main characters and for me and yet their narrative is so beautiful because of its simplicity. Not the thin volume kind of simplicity, but the carefully crafted simplicity that great writing is made of.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-26 00:00:00 Larry Dian Wonderful book... Among the top 20 that I've signed as editor...