Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Color Purple

I’m glad I listened to this book as an audiobook, which was read by the author. The parts that would have dragged or seemed dull to read were easier to simply listen to. The character’s voice came through so clearly in the audiobook—it added another dimension to the story. I felt like I was just listening to Celie tell stories about her life.

However, I was not prepared for the scenes of sexual violence the book opens with, and Walker doesn’t shy away from trauma. What she does well is show inter-generational trauma, grief, forgiveness, love, and eventually healing through the complex and evolving relationships between Celie and her family members.

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kia_y_k's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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lilliana_blackstar's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book. 💜 I really don't feel like my review can do any justice. I don't even know how to describe the experience of reading this except to say I am so in love. I loved this story and I felt all the pain and all the joy and all the feelings in between. I thought I had read this before but I realized I had not. I thought I knew what this book was about but I did not.

Aside from this book being on my TBR list for awhile now, part of why I read it this month is because I wanted to read Aquarius authors during Aquarius season. What a fine example of Queer Romance, as well as the Aquarian exploration of all kinds of relationships - including the relationship with God that morphs and changes as a person learns about the world and themselves.

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neverlandpages4's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

From the very first page, I knew that this book would be a poignant, inspiring, and educational story. It explores racism, queer identity, friendship, family, and so much more.

This is an epistolary book written in AAVE, the first half is written from Celie to God, and it explores Celie’s life and all the hardships she’s faced, the second half is Nettie’s letters to her older sister, Celie, and she describes what it was like becoming a missionary and traveling to Africa.

It's also mainly literary historical fiction and it does focus on the characters more than the plot. I’m usually more of a plot person so I did find it a bit boring at the beginning but I’d say around the 30-40% mark it did get more interesting.

Nettie’s letters made me really emotional, she talks about how due to her lack of education, she didn’t know anything about Africa and was surprised to meet other black people that were not enslaved and not working for a white family. It’s such a heartbreaking thing to read knowing that this was (and still is in some parts of the world) reality. That the color of someone’s skin determined whether or not they deserved to have basic human rights.

I love how this book also explores misogyny and how some of the women stand up for themselves and question the “norm” that is misogyny and sexism during that time period, and fight to learn and get an education regardless of the horrible men that stand in their way.

Celie made me laugh out loud many times, her character development was inspiring and I was so happy for her when she finally took charge of her life and started doing the things she loved.

I’d highly recommend reading this!! Even if the genre isn’t something you usually read, it’s still an important book that explores so many difficult topics in such an honest way. There’s also a movie adaptation that I can’t wait to watch!

Content Warnings

bookishbabe431's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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gwynethburns21's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

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katecm's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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beingjada's review against another edition

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I couldn’t get into the writing style of every chapter being a letter. Every chapter is styled like a diary entry with “Dear God”, “Dear Nettie”, etc. I was almost half way through before I put the book down and decided not to finish it.

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