About this title: A haunting tale of an Africa and an adolescence undergoing tremendous changes by a talented young Nigerian writer. Fifteen-year-old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls of her family compound and the frangipani trees she can see from her bedroom window. Her wealthy Catholic father, although generous and well-respected in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home. Her life is lived under his shadow and regulated by schedules: prayer, sleep, study, and more prayer. She lives in fear of his violence and the words in her textbooks begin to turn to blood in front ...
read more
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Anchor
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9781400076949ISBN:1400076943
Description: Good. Here is what you can expect from me when we meet. Internally I remain free of any form of marking, soiling, or even previous dog eared pages. My spine is free of any form of damage and my binding remains nice and snug. My soft covers are clean and bright, but their original new luster has faded and their free edges do show light to moderate edge wear in spots. Clean, snug, and sturdy says it all. The choice of standard shipping is via USPS media mail and can take up to 21 days for USPS ... read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Anchor Books, New York, New York, U.S.A., 2004.
ISBN-13:9781400076949ISBN:1400076943
Description: Octavo, softcover, very light edgewear to cover else VG in purple and gold pictorial wraps. 307 pp. Fifteen-year-old Kambili's world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home. When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili's father sends her and her brother away to stay with ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780007189885ISBN:0007189885
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Description: Good. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9781565123878ISBN:1565123875
Description: Very Good in Good jacket. This book is in very good condition. The binding is tight and pages are clean. The inside of the front cover bottom edge and 1st page (free endpaper) have som light staining. This results in the first few pages have minor rippling near the bottom edge toward the spine. The dust jacket is in good condition with bumps and scuffs. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9781565123878ISBN:1565123875
Description: Almost New in Good jacket. Fiction. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. This is a book about the promise of freedom, about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood, between love and hatred, and between the old gods and the new. This book is in great shape. The dust jacket has rumpling along the top and bottom edges and the top front corner is chipped. The jacket is not price clippped and is in new clear protective covering. read more
Edition: NEW ED
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780007189885ISBN:0007189885
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 320 pages. (320 pages) a haunting tale of an africa and an adolescence undergoing tremendous changes, by a young nigerian writer. port. edition new ed (Paperback) read more
Edition: (REISSUE)
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780007268382ISBN:0007268386
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 336 pages. A haunting tale of an africa and an adolescence undergoing tremendous changes from the talented bestseller and award-winning author chimamanda ngozi adichie. edition (reissue) (Paperback) read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Date Published: 2003-10-30
ISBN-13:9781565123878ISBN:1565123875
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Hardcover with dust-jacket. First edition with a full number line 1-10. Dust-jacket has mild shelf-wear--now protected in mylar sleeve. Book has mild edge-wear. Unmarked. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Date Published: 2003-10-30
ISBN-13:9781565123878ISBN:1565123875
Description: Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. Excellent Hardcover First Edition, First Printing! Clean, Tight, Appears Unused, In like Jacket. ~"Guaranteed quality or your money back" Free Tracking~ read more
Description: Acceptable. Ships from the UK. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Your purchase also supports literacy charities. read more
Description: 307+1 pages: powerful novel by Nigerian women about a child exposed to religious intolerance & the uglier side of the Nigerian state, short-listed for the Orange Prize; hardback vg+ vg+ dw FIRST EDITION. read more
Edition: First American Edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9781565123878ISBN:1565123875
Description: Near Fine. in Fine jacket. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. A near fine copy of the FIRST EDITION. FIRST PRINTING. In FINE Jacket. name on ffep, else fine. TRUE FIRST EDITION. read more
"This was well written and quick read, but not easy. Kambili is a fifteen year old girl in an extremely Catholic household in Nigeria. Her father expects only the very best out of her, her brother, and mother and beats it into them. Majority of people in this novel are religious zealots. Kambili is growing up with no self confidence at all and even after her father beats her near to death and causes her mother to miscarry for the zillionth time, her mother takes her back to the household of cruelty. Finally, and thankfully, ****SPOILER ALERT**** somebody wakes up and smells the manure so to speak and kills the dad. Thus the novel ends with the mother a former shell of herself and the brother in jail for the crime. Depressing ending to a depressing story. As for the young adult crowd, I think this novel may scare them away from religion for the rest of their lives."
"What a refreshing change after a run of really disappointing books. "Purple Hibiscus" is an engaging novel about Kambili, a teenage girl growing up in Nigeria. Her father, a longtime convert to Christianity, is staunchly religious and a pillar of the community, pious and generous to outsiders, harsh and abusive to his wife and two children. Kambili's father, Eugene, keeps the children on an extremely tight schedule and they live in fear of coming in second on their report cards. As such, peer socialization and joie de vivre are completely nonexistent for Kambili and her older brother, Jaja. This changes when Eugene finally allows the children to visit his sister, Ifeoma, who runs her house in a completely different fashion. This exposure has far-reaching effects for Kambili, Jaja, and their entire family.
Eugene is someone the reader could truly hate, yet he is depicted with some dimension. He reminded me of a less loving version of Jung Chang's father in "Wild Swans" - devoted to his principles with a tunnel vision that does not allow for deviation. You chafe against his rigid, abusive nature but there is something admirable about his commitment (he publishes the only newspaper that dares to criticize the Nigerian government). Admittedly, this perceived three-dimensionality may also be a function of my perspective; perhaps, as a religious person, I had more sympathy for Eugene than another reader might have. For example, while I may not have fully empathized with his unwillingness to permit relationships between the children and their pagan relatives, I understood well where it came from and could relate to his dilemma.
Adichie also depicts Kambili's relationship with her father in its full complexity - her earnest desire to please him stems not only from fear, but from a genuine wish to earn his approval as well. And Eugene, his abuse notwithstanding, is a father who cries when his children leave him for two days and occasionally demonstrates tenderness that makes his abusive discipline appear, if momentarily, misguided rather than cruel. In the opening scene, when Jaja finally defies his father (after many of the events in the book have already taken place), Eugene's abusive stance shifts: "Papa made to get up and then slumped back on his seat. His cheeks drooped, doglike." Using only these two simple sentences (she moves on after that), Adichie conveys the profound moment of Eugene's admission of defeat: after years of abusing and controlling his children, Eugene realizes that something has changed. While more context may be necessary in order to fully appreciate what Adichie's writing achieved here, throughout the book I admired her ability to convey a great deal using deceptively simple phrases.
The dialogue seemed stilted and forced occasionally, sometimes reading like a device to inform the reader rather than like a natural conversation, but this did not happen too often and overall, did not detract much from a highly readable story. I was a bit more bothered by the graphic descriptions of abuse, powerful but painful to read.
I was also a little confused by Kambili's relationship with her aunt's priest. I understood Kambili's developing a crush on him; what I couldn't understand was the open secret of the priest's returning her feelings, especially since, aside from his status as a priest, he must have been quite a bit older than her even if he was relatively young (don't worry, the relationship isn't consummated and it doesn't become a molestation story).
That said, I'm really glad that I happened to see her next book, "Half of a Yellow Sun," on the same Sefer ve-Sefel trip that I bought this one and impulsively decided to pick it up even though I usually limit myself to buying one book if I don't know the author. In this case, I suspect the gamble will pay off."
"When I learned that Adichie was on the list to be a PEN/Faulkner visitor, I immediately put her to the front of my reading list. I have wanted to read Half a Yellow Sun for a while, but just haven't got around to it. I went to the Chevy Chase library to pick up one of the only available DCPL copies, and saw this on the shelf as well.
The characters in this book are vividly if not a little flatly drawn, but, just as with Abani's Graceland, there is an education in itself here. Each page teaches more about Nigeria's present and past. It was great to read near Graceland because Purple Hibiscus by focusing on an affluent family outside of Lagos details a different type of life. At the core is a life of excess: excess religion (Chrisianity), excess money (where does it all lead), excess Westernism (too stifling, too disciplined, too predictable), and excess behavior (tyrannical fathers, impotent sons). I choked along with Kambili and Jaja as they yearned to get to Nsukka and escape their life of excess.
The characters are so alive and the events are so crisply drawn, you really feel like part of the story. There is much genuine emotion here and I found myself affected when the characters where affected. While this is just the first novel of a considerable writing talent, it only makes me want to read more and more."
"I very much enjoyed Half of a Yellow Sun and was curious to read Adichie's first novel. Purple Hibiscus is a good book, but not a great one, like HoaYS. My library shelved it in the YA section, though I don't think Adichie intended this to be strictly for a YA audience. My guess is that, because it is a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl, it was automatically assigned to YA. I don't know why I'm quibbling about this, though, as I would recommend it more highly to a young reader than to an adult. Characters were a little too broad, and Kambili's transformation from not talking to talking didn't feel quite true. The "complexity" of Eugene the father, that he was an abusive ass but also gave away lots of money to the needy, was told rather than shown. But there were some beautiful moments and I learned more about Nigeria than I new before, which is a net gain."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
