Purple Hibiscus, is a wonderful piece of literary fiction. It is a coming of age story, a story of domestic violence, and a look at freedom. The characters are well-developed.

Fifteen year old Kambili, lives a life of privilege in with her parents, and her brother Jaja in Nigeria. The father, Eugene is a wealthy businessman, a religious fanatic, and a strict disciplinarian. His family is the recipient of his cruel and unusual forms of punishment. The book opens on Palm Sunday, with the father, Eugene, throwing a prayer book across the room, trying to hit his son for his refusal to taken communion at mass earlier in the day. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Later in the story Kambili and Jaja spend some time away from home at their Aunty Ifeoma's home. At this home there is laughter, love, few rules and much freedom. Later, the mother also spends some time there, and soon they begin to question the strict rules Eugene makes them adhere to. What follows changes their lives forever.

This book was an amazing debut novel. I had both the written version and the audio version (the reader was excellent). It was not necessary to have the written copy to enjoy this book however, I was curious about some of the names and phrases so the written form was helpful. I definitely plan to read more by this author.

I finally managed to get my hands on a library copy of Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I'm glad I did, because it's a truly beautiful book.

Fifteen-year-old Kambili lives in Nigeria with her parents and her older brother Jaja. Her father Eugene, a rich businessman and the owner of the only indipendent newspaper in the country, is considered a model of generosity and political courage. But he's also a fanatic Catholic and a tyrant at home, imposing a strict discipline over his family and lashing out cruel, violent punishment.

But everything changes for Kambili and Jaja when they go to live with their aunt Ifeoma, a university professor with three kids. In the new house there is laughter, music, and the ability to discuss matters. Kambili and Jaja discover a new life of independence, love, and freedom. And this will change their future forever.

I truly loved this book. Purple Hibiscus is a compelling story about the end of innocence, domestic violence, religious fanatism and the discovery of freedom, against the backdrop of an African country troubled by corruption and dictatorship.

If you haven't read it yet, go and grab a copy!

I bought this book a few months ago, Iwas riveted from the first line. Very good reading, excellent writing by this young author. I looked for other books by this author and found Half A Yellow Sun which was even better than Purple Hibiscus. I learned a lot about Nigeria and the civil war. I also learned some nigerian words. Great great writing by this young author.

This is such a beautifully written, raw, heartbreaking book. There's a great deal regarding wealth and exploring what it really means to be "rich" or privileged. It is somewhat critical of the impact of the very rigid, self-righteous, culture-obliterating form of Roman Catholicism practiced by some. Though she attempts to make Eugene, the narrator's father, dynamic, I don't think most readers will leave with the impression that he means well and is merely a product of his environment. The repeated domestic violence for which he sheds crocodile tears just never ends.

(SPOILER ALERT: I'm fairly sure repeatedly killing your unborn children during the process of beating your wife falls under the domain of "mortal sins" but hey, a trip to confession will clean that right up! His approach to religion made me sick to my stomach)

I don't know how many of you out there have ever read Nigerian writer. Not do I know what do you expect from one. Being a Nigerian, and being a women, puts Chimananda Adichie Ngozi in an ungratefull position. Critics will expect different kind of voice, one that will open new worlds, and depending on the ideology which they represent, they will try to read The Purple Hibiscus" according to their own agenda. You should be hearing about oppresion of females, orthodox catholicism and its drawbacks, violent paternalism and many such things which imposes themselves upon reading of this book.

Some of them will look for traces of political radicalism, looking to find solution for problem of third world countries. In any case, some kind of ideological reading of this book should be present out there. It is it's inevitable destiny, being what it is.

Few people will look upon this novel, as novel itself, without putting it into some kind of dominant or popular discourse. And those who will, what will they find?

They will find the story of fear, story of growing up and change of ideals, much of it will be similar (for those of you who have read them) with Hosseini's The Kite Runner" and Levy's Small island", but somehow still it will be different.

There is no superficial judgment present in this book, there are no easy solutions to problems presented here. Characters are drawn (born into) into enchanted circle from which they cannot ever escape. Only possible solution is destruction, or deconstruction, but without spare identity in which arms you can ran into, even those options are limited and unavaliable.

Those of you who are fed up with stories of growing up in some backwater country, of dominant fathers and lack of justice or some such concept, will not look kindly upon this book. It will seem to them that they've seen it all before. But, in case they choose not to read it, they will miss excellent novel, which precisely draws problems of modernity, in it's modern day appearance. Even though philosophy and possibility of solution presented here isn't as explicit as you might expect, it is still present and it carries the book and it's characters to something more than just another post-colonial novel".

There are not many postisms here, there is no unique feminine voice that speaks for the Africans, there is just a novel, carefully written, which will give chance to everyone, for their own solution, and their own, ideological or not, interpretation. Just that should be invitation enough to read the book.