Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They’re completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.
As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.
Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #37: Genre chosen for you by someone else)
The Reason
I read We Should All Be Feminists by the same author some time ago and had been meaning to read more of her works.
The Quotes
“There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once.”
“We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.”
“The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?”
“I cannot control even the dreams that I have made.”
The Narrator(s)
Lisette Lecat. She’s a wonderful narrator, she had just the right emotional expression.
My Thoughts
I’m not sure how I can begin to gush about this book. It is so emotionally powerful, heartbreaking, and completely pulls you in. I’d only read We Should All Be Feminists by Adichie previously and it was a short nonfiction, but I respected the way she wrote and expressed her ideas so clearly. I had been meaning to read more of her works and only just finally read this one.
The writing is so powerful; it gut punches you from the very beginning and just keeps getting more and more intense. Realizing that this is Adichie’s first book makes it even more incredible. You really get into Kambili’s mind, feel her feelings, care for her. I have a visceral hate for her father, and so much sadness for her circumstances. I am still feeling my feelings over this book and I am very much wanting to read more of her books after this.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?