The Color Purple in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 21, 2021 Astrid Lim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, historical-fiction, lgbt, america, african-american, popsugar-2021

3,5 stars from me.

A very famous classic book (with equally famous movie adaptation) about Celie, a black woman living in American Southern state during the 1940s. It's full of heartbreaking moments, because Celie's life is so hard since the beginning: molested and raped by her stepfather, losing her mom, separated with her beloved sister Nettie, forced to marry a jerk, and.. fell in love with an impossible woman.

At first, it's a bit hard to follow the story because it's told in the letter forma ...more

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Feb 14, 2018 Nadine in NY Jones rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, literary-schmiterary, era-early-1900s, classic, historical-fiction, national-book-award-winners, pulitzer-winner, womens-day

Well, I say, we all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, and our own self is what us have to hand.

This is a modern classic, and I'd never read it, and I'd never watched the full movie, just seen bits here and there. So I sort of knew what this was about, but I mostly didn't know.

It starts off pretty depressing!!

I sure hate to leave you here with these rotten children, she say. Not to mention with Mr. ____. It’s like seeing you buried, she say.

It’s worse than that, I think. I

Well, I say, we all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, and our own self is what us have to hand.

This is a modern classic, and I'd never read it, and I'd never watched the full movie, just seen bits here and there. So I sort of knew what this was about, but I mostly didn't know.

It starts off pretty depressing!!

I sure hate to leave you here with these rotten children, she say. Not to mention with Mr. ____. It’s like seeing you buried, she say.

It’s worse than that, I think. If I was buried, I wouldn’t have to work. But I just say, Never mine, never mine, long as I can spell G-o-d I got somebody along.

But Celie perseveres and things slowly start looking up for her. This is a surprisingly fast read. Walker's dialogue flows so naturally and smoothly, reading it is effortless. I even found myself thinking in Celie's Deep South country dialect.

Eventually, it starts to feel like Walker threw in everything plus the kitchen sink. Think of a social issue, and yes it's in this book. I guess she had so many ideas in her head and was so eager to get them out and on paper, she just couldn't wait for another book, and crammed them all into this one. (I confess, when it got to Europe underdeveloping Africa and FGM and sickle cell disease, I started skimming to get back to the "real" story, Celie's story. How many social issues, controversies, and injustices should exist inside one book?) This wasn't her first book, but this is the one that won the Pulitzer AND the National, so I guess Walker knew what she was doing by adding everything in. Shows what I know. Which is not much.

I'm an atheist, so I worried a little bit when the book starts "Dear God," but it works out okay. According to this book, by going about my regular day, I'm honoring and pleasing god, and god is in everything, including the color purple. I can't disagree, but I still think that's a buncha hooey. If it helps some people feel better, that's fine by me.

I admit I couldn't forget about the estrangement between Alice Walker and her daughter, Rebecca, while reading this. Rebecca alternated a few years living with her mother and a few with her father, and it sounds like a lot of that time, some one else was charged with caring for her. I noticed most of the children in the book are also raised by people who are not their parents. ...more

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Dec 26, 2007 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer, recommend-to-friends, 1001-must-read, book-club-rg, american-as-apple-pie, owned, page-to-screen, page-to-stage, required-reading, bipoc

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 15, 2023 Erica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction

5 stars for the content, as it was pubbed in the mid-80s. Characters great! But it's also wonderful to trace how far African American women's fiction has come by the 2020s! ...more

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