Purple Hibiscus A Novel

Obviously, not my usual type of genre, but it did keep my attention. Adichie's descriptions in the book were vivid and the way she used poetic sentences to talk about something was really well done. I have to say, I did not like Eugene at all. I mean, who would considering he's the villain of the novel. I feel a little justice at the fact that he came to bad ends as I always like a villain's "reign" to end, though it's never good to take a life. Eugene did good things for the community, but his family life wasn't as well as people thought. He was abusive, a religious-nut, and a control freak. At the end of the day, how you treat your family matters more than what you do for others, at least to me. I guess that can mean many things for different situations, but for this one, it really mattered. At times he would get so paranoid that his family was "walking through sin" that I would wonder why he was so worried about sin and how he turned out to be the way he was, a man who hurts the people he loves (and the only ones who loved him) because he thought they sinned. What he saw as sins were not. They were the attempts of teenagers trying to fit in and act normal. I think it was wrong of Eugene to push such a strict religion onto Kambili and Jaja as well as isolate them from anything that's considered normal for their age group to do. I liked how Kambili and Jaja came out of their "shells" and started to realize that it's not wrong to laugh and smile and act their age. They don't have to always be bound to their father's ways. In the end, I guess the lesson to be learned was to not be bound by other people's expectations of you. To always follow your heart, it's an old cliche, but it's true in this case. And to not allow yourself to be a victim and stand up for yourself, because sometimes (well, actually most of the time) nobody else will.