The Color Purple: Tenth Anniversary Editon by Alice Walker (1992-05-22)

Celie is the main storyteller of this book, and she is what makes this book so remarkable.
From the first page, you become completely invested in Celie and her environment. Her voice is strong and real. This epistolary novel is told entirely through its characters as a way of critiquing the world of the 1930s. Walker deftly touches on religion, love, the struggle of identity between African-Americans and Africans, and what it can mean to be a woman.
The subject matter makes it difficult to read sometimes, yet you can't help but keep going because you're rooting for Celie to pull through and get a chance to be happy. Throughout the book, we get to watch Celie discover life and bloom.


In particular, the transition from this:

I think what color Shug Avery would wear. She like a queen to me so I say to Kate, Somethin purple, maybe little red in it too. But us look an look and no purple. Plenty red but she say, Naw, he won't want to pay for red. Too happy lookin.

to this:

I’m busy making pants for Sofia now. One leg be purple, one leg be red. I dream Sofia wearing these pants, one day she was jumping over the moon.

had my heart yelling.

Also, even if I'm still torn about whether or not Mr. ___ should be forgiven, this quote was wonderful to read outside at the beginning of spring when the sun is just beginning to warm up the world again:

I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder, to ast. And that in wondering bout the big things and asting bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, he say, the more I love.

I see why this book is a classic. I also see why it was banned. But I would still recommend everyone to read this book at some point in their life.

I finished it in the span of a few hours cause It was easy to read and I’ve been meaning to read this forever. Now I would first want to say that the writing style specifically on Celia’s narration seemed so natural and original, it was a delight to read this but after Celie discovered Nettie’s hidden letters and started reading them continuously I kind of didn’t enjoy it but I don't know in how another way Nettie would've described her situation (which spanned for so many years) to her sister, seems logical but I didn’t enjoy it much. for the first portions I was so much delighted to see that Nettie and Celia’s sibling bond was so strong even tho Celie didn’t possibly get empathy from many people other than her sister and probably her former teacher. I don't even wanna mention the monster stepfather who tbh not only sexually assaulted the kids but also sold Celia to another horrible disgusting man. at one point Celie was talking about how men scare her so she likes to stare at women feels so heartbreaking and obvious for repeated sexual assault survivors. in her ‘husband’ s house she was treated so badly and the freaking asshole also encouraged his son to treat Celie badly cause she’s a woman, she’s supposed to be lower, felt sot typical disgusting behaviour I liked how he was called Mr.dash for most of the book,

[11:31]

I dunno if it's my correct interpretation but he was nothing in Celia’s eyes other than an abuser so his name has no importance, he’s a generic piece of shit. tbh I hated Shug Avery too after she was so rude to Celia at first she only opened up cause Celie was so good to her also in the last portions she was jealous of Albert and Celie’s reunion (which I had another opinion personally). Shug Avery can empower people who are hurt, who’re helpless and determined altho I didn’t like her platonic and sexual relations with random people when she was probably down with std? (also not confirmed) and kinda in unspoken relation with Celia but I don’t think she gave Celia any signal of becoming her life partner or something. although she seemed very jealous of Albert's relations which is kind of felt weird to me, she wanted to be his wife because of her sextual compatibality with Albert or mr. dash was nice? but Her contribution to empowering and helping many people Squeak, Sofia and Celia were very crucial above all to make them complete people even though not all of them are protagonists. I like her interpretation of god to it proves she was not only open-minded in sexual nature but her philosophical thinking is out of the box too, and for the purple field metaphor, I think it’s mentioned cause blue is generally the colour of sorrow and red as happiness, our life is mixed with both of them so it’s the secondary colour purple.now onto something that bugged me- I didn’t like Celie told to beat Sofia even tho I dunno why she did that jealousy perhaps because she has enough self-respect which Celia doesn’t? also the fairytale-like ending meh I didn’t like alpherd or Albert whatever and Celia got chummy bruh wtf I don't’ think he was supposed to be forgiven cause he does housework by himself now smh, also that Nettie became stepmom of Celia’s lost children, talk about destiny, Corrine died and Samuel well married the children’s real aunt huh okay seems too perfect and unrealistic for me.
Now I liked the most was Celia's character growth of becoming a self-independent woman and her reunion with her kids and sister. my overall rating is 3.75

Excellent book. I bet I don't really have much new to contribute to ideas about this book, but I have several things about it I personally really enjoyed. It really opened my eyes to exactly how much it sucked/sucks to be a poor woman of color. That's one of those things that I understand, intellectually, it's a bad situation to be poor and a woman and it's a worse situation to be a poor woman of color. But it makes more of an impact when you read a story with such raw, piercing examples. The first half of this book is hard to read. The mistreatment of Celie hurts, and her helplessness hurts even more.

But that's why the second half is so satisfying. This book was so nice to read to the end. I am so tired of coming-of-age stories, particularly of ennui-filled upper middle class white boys. It was nice to hear a full journey, not just a coming-of-age, of a woman of color, and to listen to her evolve and grow and become this beautiful person.

The thing I liked best about the book was its sense of optimism. I think we can all learn a lot from this book, on many different topics, but I also think it's almost most important that we learn that we can seize control of our own lives, even if it's one small step at a time, and that it's okay to reach out to others for help.

Love this book.