Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Uche Edochie, Perfect Illusions

(May 23) Loved this as much as Half of a Yellow Sun, for the same reasons -- the vivid and appealing characters, the cultural illumination, the humanity of the vision. It’s quite a different story, though -- it’s a girl’s coming-of-age in a dysfunctional family, as the daughter of a man whose public persona is heroic and generous, but who’s actually a religious fanatic and a sadistic tyrant. In some ways it’s more tense and scary than a war saga.

Basically, when within half an hour of starting it, a book has got me burning to hatchet-murder a fictional character, I know I’ve got a powerful book on my hands.

Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Uche Okeke, Refugee Family

(May 14) Loved. Loved so much I could not turn to any other writer right away despite trying hard, and finally went out and got Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus, just to have some more of her.

The characters are interesting and endearing, and their struggles with the Biafran war of secession against Nigeria are spell-binding. I really enjoyed the cultural immersion -- Adichie has a skillful way of presenting customs, things, foods, words, etc., that would be exclusively Nigerian so that they seem natural but are also accessible to foreign readers.

I was most amazed by my own ignorance about what was going on in Biafra, which was all the news when I was in high school. I can’t believe I was so unaware. I thought it was famine alone.

So it was good story, anthropology lesson, and history / poli sci lesson all in one, and very well done.

Also, it’s heart-breaking.

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Speke Hall

(April 30) I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend it, particularly to fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Woman in White. The author actually blends all the signature elements of those stories into one of her own, adding in a few extra twists, and I think it’s really well done.

For example, there are two narrators, a take on the nested narrators in Wuthering Heights, but, here in The Thirteenth Tale, because of what they’re going through, the narrators blend and merge in a dreamy way and become indistinguishable at times, causing reader double-takes in a very cool fashion.

Most of the characters in The Thirteenth Tale themselves, in fact, are fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Woman in White and refer to the books quite often (especially Jane Eyre), so there’s some meta going on as well, to modernize things. In fact, I was a little skeptical about the book for the first 40 or 50 pages -- it’s clearly a book-lover’s book for book-lovers, a concept done to death these days, I think. But The Thirteenth Tale definitely became enchanting and, I’d say, stakes a claim for a life of its own.

The basic mystery itself is absorbing -- Setterfield is good at red herrings, bizarre clues and limited points of view -- and thrillingly creepy at times. Friends who recommended The Thirteenth Tale to me reported staying up till the wee hours to find out how the mystery is resolved and I can see why (although I personally did not pull an all-nighter to finish it).