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Purple Hibiscus | 
 enlarge | Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.75
You Save: £5.24 (66%)
New (28) Used (10) from £2.75
Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 716
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0007189885
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780007189885
ASIN: 0007189885
Publication Date: February 7, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Powerful, heartwrenching, excellent. May 16, 2006
MaryAnne (Dubai United Arab Emirates)
48 out of 49 found this review helpful
Read by our bookclub, this book produced enthusiastic reviews.
Teenage Kambili tells her story. Gradually we begin to see the cracks in a family that outwardly appears prosperous and loving. The children are painfully subserviant, less than first place in school provokes serious repercussions. The mother has repeated miscarriages while the father is the village philanthropist.
After a visit to her Aunt Ifeoma and her three cousins, Kambili starts to see things as they really are; the life she thought normal starts to become frightening.
The threatening thing about the situation is the power of the church and the Catholic religion, used as an excuse to inflict terrible punishment for percieved misdemeanors. Also the power of other people's opinions and maintaining a position within the village.
It's a book that you won't want to put down, but some passages are quite distressing.
Stunning 5* read! February 13, 2005
dovegreyreader (UK)
36 out of 37 found this review helpful
I picked this book up intending to read a few pages in just to see what I thought and actually hardly put it down again until I had finished it.
It is a fantastic insight into life in Nigeria in unsettled political times with the overarching conflict of the Catholic religion versus indigenous faiths almost subsuming everything else.
Kambili and Jaja's father is a prosperous and generous Catholic businessman respected and revered in the wider community for his support of charities yet behind closed doors he is a despotic, controlling and ultimately extremely violent man.
Helpless and seemingly powerless, the family can do nothing but tolerate Papa's violence which despite it's brutality still does nothing to affect their love for him until finally and very unexpectedly the power does shift.Adichie creates the family who have everything yet have nothing and then contrasts them powerfully with another branch of the family who seemingly have nothing yet have it all and it works.
She delineates fear superbly;the reader really feels and lives what this family are going through.There is a wonderful intermingling of local dialect within the narrative that grounds this book very firmly in Nigeria and much of the beauty and hardship of the country is clearly described in a flowing and atmospheric style.
Despite the stomach-churning physical abuse that almost moves you to tears for many reasons ,I found this an ultimately very satisfying read.
Electrifying read August 16, 2007
Sitizi (Raleigh, USA)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
Purple Hibiscus is a beautiful story. The plot is based on a 14 year-old who grew up under the stifling patronage of a stern father. Her domineering father frequently physically abused his family alongside her, creating terror at home and stunting the psychological growth of his children. Against the backdrop of the deterioration of the socio-economic and political life of Nigeria as it undergoes a military coup, the life Kambili knows is shattered and she has to seek for refuge in the home of her aunt. Kambili the sheltered but highly restricted child, who never thought of herself as lucky and who had earlier been absconded by her peers and cousin because of her supposedly privileges, learns to assert herself and becomes a beloved character, a character who easily understood the plight of those around her.. Kambili at first came to terms with her father as someone who regarded himself as a pillar of the community and someone she genuinely loved. Even the emotional and physical pains he inflicted are seen only as a gesture of love for her own good, but later she comes to consider his actions as abnormal. With its vivid portrayal of Nigerian life, and brilliant dissection of the characters , this novel moves at a pace which is electrifying.Also recommended:HALF OF A YELLOW SUN, THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES,that I enjoyed this summer.
Evocative March 23, 2004
Ann Gleeson (Bradford, UK)
30 out of 31 found this review helpful
Purple Hibiscus is an evocative and beautifully written novel. Kambili the narrator, tells a story of a privileged childhood in Nigeria but overshadowed by a domestic violence which mirrors the violence of politics. Through getting to know her aunt and cousins (who live in much less favourable circumstances) Kambili comes to understand what normal family relationships are - love, laughter, intelligent discussion, outbursts of temper. These are things which, despite a loving mother and brother, Kambili had never experienced due to her fanatically religious father who ruled his family with an iron rod - and violence. Fortunately the narrator does see another side of the Church in the charming and perceptive Fr. Amadi. The novel comes to a very unexpected conclusion. The writing is extraordinarily mature and beautifully understated. I do hope Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will be inspired to write further novels and congratulate her on this wonderful first book.
Nostalgia unlimited July 8, 2004
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Having grown up in the familiar environments, felt similar pressures, driven on the roads, woken up in the sunshine and experienced the chaos decribed in this book...Ngozi tells a story of growing up in eastern Nigeria...The paradoxes, the joys....all encapsulated in one engrossing story. For the first time in a while...I read a book I could not drop...one that brought joy...pride...as well as a few lessons that we learnt (that we might rather not want to pass on the next generation...) a beautiful story...of a beatiful area...in its true innocence, triumphs and failures...
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