B.O.A.S Rating – 4/5

Purple Hibiscus was part endearing and part horrifying. Shy Kambili and her brother Jaja, grow up in the tyranny of their devout and wealth father, Papa. Their own mother is hapless to the situation and is as much a victim as they are.

While adored, almost revered, by his community and the church for his generosity, his family sees another side of Papa. From his own father and sister to his wife and children, Eugene is indiscriminate in his oppression. All in the guise of religion.

You can imagine the sheer shock to the system that Kambili and Jaja experience when they spend their first time away from home. In their aunt’s home, they experience what it truly means to be a family. And our darling Kambili matures from her timid quiet self to a self-aware young woman.

And in the midst of all this, the backdrop is post-colonial Nigeria, the military regimes and failed governance.

In a quiet, unassuming way, Chimamanda examines the complicated nature of families, religion and politics. Rich in description and imagery, it’s hard to believe that this was Chimamanda’s first novel at the age of 26.

Purple Hibiscus was a hit at book club and I’d highly recommend the same. It’s not high action, although it does have a great twist ending. It is descriptive and emotive. And that’s what you always want from a book. To love and hate the characters in equal measure. I dare you not to be moved by the thought of poor Kambili in a bathtub with hot water being used in an imaginable way.

Favourite quote: 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.