mitskacir 's review for:

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

5.0

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Adichie continues to be one of my favorite authors. I've read all her other books, and felt like this one, as her first, was slightly less masterful (rounding up from 4.5 stars), but still had all the hallmarks of her later writing. Her characters were complex, but their complexity was more surface level and not as fully realized as in some of her other books: Kambili loves and fears her father, and her emotions are restrained and repressed because of the abuse she experiences - but at the same time, this emotional estrangement from the reader makes it harder to understand the full complexity of her perceptions; her father is abusive, tender, and charitable, but much of this is told to us instead of experienced through Kambili. Nonetheless, this book was gripping and made my heart ache with both the horrors and joys Kambili experiences.