Lisa 's Reviews > Purple Hibiscus

A father/husband who is physically abusive, extremely authoritarian, rigidly Catholic, yet extremely generous toward his community drives the action of the novel. When his children, Kambili (the narrator) and Jaja, go to live with their aunt they witness and begin to experience autonomy.

Nigerian political strife is merely a backdrop in this novel. Eugene, Kambili’s father, runs a paper and finds himself having to take his printing underground to escape the authorities; Ifeoma, Kambili’s aunt/ Eugene’s sister, loses her University job because she was suspected of supporting student riots. But the book is not about the political scene, it is about the family, the changes the family goes through as they learn more about each other, and the changes that Kambili struggles with as she realizes she can hold her own opinions and make her own decisions.

Adichie does a masterful job of presenting multi-dimensional characters in a realistic world. Though I do not have any first-hand experience of life in Nigeria, Adichie never leaves me feeling like I do not understand some aspect of life there, but the tone is never didactic. She has found the perfect balance of being sufficiently descriptive while never allowing the descriptions to become tedious.

An extremely well-executed first novel!