But this week, I had some good friends over for dinner, we cooked, ate, laughed, reminisced and caught up on recent events. When it was time for them to leave one of them turned to me and said, 'I need to borrow a book for the train.' and that was it - easy. Now, this is the fun bit (for me anyway), she was handing back the book she had just read to my other friend and in that moment, I snatched it from the air: 'Can I borrow this?' ...and here we are. That book was Purple Hibiscus, a book I have seen a million times in bookshops, on tubes, glimpsed it in bags of passersby and always wanted to read - but it was way down on my list (as so many great books are). So when this serendipitous moment happened I knew it was time.
Purple Hibiscus is enchanting, I say that because I could be sitting on a train or in a noisy coffee shop and all I could think about was this book. Somehow the world slowed down for me and I was able to sink deeper under Adichie's spell.
Kambili and Jaja are children of a great man, he is a man who offers money to strangers, who pays his neighbours children's school fees. He is never far away from offering help or resources to others, those less fortunate than himself - so long as they are Catholics that is. Kambili and Jaja have grown up knowing just what is a sin and what is not, they have schedules for every minute of every day, sleep, study, eat, pray and their fanatically religious father's constant presence. Even though Kambili is only fifteen-years-old she has no friends, does not even know what her own laughter sounds like. That is until Jaja and Kambili go to stay with their aunt and cousins for one week - a week that in the end will transform everything they are, everything they know. Unveiling a universal truth that once realised can never be forgotten.
This is a haunting and beautiful book that has stayed with me long after finishing it. I have even bought Half of a Yellow Sun as I cannot quite get Adichie's haunting voice out of my head.
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