Don't walk past The Color Purple and not notice it

I've done well this week, started off with three books from the list and have read two of them, plus another for pleasure reading.

But first, The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

I'd been wanting to read this book since I sort of saw the film on the plane coming back from America, and I wasn't disappointed.
The book is written in the form of letters, with the majority being written by the main character Celie and then later by her sister Nettie to Celie.

The book covers about 30 years of their history, beginning when Celie is married off unvoluntarily to Mr. ___ (his character only gets a name towards the end of the book) to tend his house and look after his kids. She lives a hard life and is redeemed in the end as she achieves independence.

The language of the book took a little bit to get used to as Celie writes somewhat phonetically, in order to show her lack of literacy. Her sister has received a better education and as such her letters are written "normally".

I was also expecting a larger book when I went to get it from the library, but it was quite slim (maybe that's why I read it so quickly) and the format of the letters meant it was easy to get through as you could stop after a letter, rather than having to wait until the end of a chapter.

So why the title? The quote below from the book goes some way to explain it :

"I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it."

It is as though the writer is saying that just because you haven't noticed it, doesn't mean it isn't there, and it was put there to be noticed. The book covers various different issues which this statement could apply to; homosexuality; racism; exploitation; abuse and fundamentally religion.

For a small book, it is certainly profound and everyone should read it - regardless of who you are or what you believe in - you can take something from it.