It wasn't a very gripping read that you had to know what was going to happen next but really towards the end I wanted to know if Celie was ever going to meet Nettie again so that final scene was the most emotional.

I liked the diary format - somehow with chapters at 2 pages long it's so much quicker to get through! It was perhaps a little harder to believe - the first page is Celie writing to God and the second sentence is scored out as though she is writing it but shortly after she is just learning to spell G-o-d. Her writing did seem to me to be a little more proper after all Nettie's letters though.

I didn't like all the missing names - that really got on my nerves... always seemed to break up the flow of reading it.

Celie managed to turn her life around from how it was but she's surrounded by strong women in Sofia and Shug. But those who do abuse women aren't seen as just evil but also the caring side to them. Things become a lot brighter - Celie's room especially at the end... can't say I can imagine what a room of red, purple and yellow would look like

I really enjoy reading a diary/letter style novel as I feel as if the narrator is speaking directly to me. I think Celie's view is narrow, but I think what is interesting is at the start of the novel she is recording everything going on around her. She is looking outwards not inwards, she is conveying what she sees and not what she feels as she thinks that she is not allowed to have feelings, she is a possession; used, abused, bought and sold - she is like an animal in the field. As the novel progresses she learns to convey her feelings; first her desire and love for Shug, then her hatred of 'Mister'.

I love the theory of God that Shug explains. Granted, it is very simplistic and gives humans little responsibility or reason to be good people, but then in nature there is no crime, no right and wrong, I think she means a God that is between one person and the world, without organisation from others.

I have seen the film a few times and loved it, and that was the main reason I didn't chose to read this book earlier, I thought I would have the movie too much in mind, but, I have really enjoyed reading it. I think Alice Walker is a great novelist and I enjoyed Meridian, and Possessing the Secret of Joy (which tells Tashi from TCP's story about leaving the Olinka people and moving to America). Her books always stay with me for a long time after I have finished reading them.

I thought it was so moving. It was great to Celie grow from a beat-up trodden on women to a thriving business woman. I thought the change in all the characters was one of the most interesting parts. It is very realistic, many people are completely different to the person they were 20 years earlier, and often books in shorter time scales don't give us the opportunity to see this. I just felt the book was alive with the characters and places, probably because of the style it was written in. It really drew me in so I felt that Celie was sitting next to me telling me her life story.

Like some of the others on this forum I did find the style of writing a bit difficult but my real problem was that I wasn’t able to take to Celie, which made me feel a bit guilty. Her early life was so awful I felt that it should have made me really care more about her and the discrimination and hardships black people had to face after the abolition of slavery. Despite not been able to empathise with Celie I still wanted to finish the book and later on when the letters from Nettie started to appear I actually started to enjoy the book.

For me Nettie’s life as a missionary in Africa was much more interesting and the appalling actions of the rubber company building the road right through the village and the treatment the villages received did affect me – big business putting profit before people, as usual. It was also interesting to read the villagers view of the missionaries.

Even though Nettie, Samuel and Corrie were black they were seen in the same way as the white missionaries and the indifference of the African’s to the slave trade and the part their ancestors played in it was unexpected but not surprising when we found that the were still selling ‘difficult’ woman to traders from the coast. The issues of scarring and female circumcision were briefly touched on and I think I will now try to read Possessing the Secret Joy which tells Tashi’s story. I find it difficult to understand that a woman would voluntary choose to do this as Tashi did - although it seems she does regret her decision when it is to late. I found the ending a bit to contrived. Nettie and her family were supposed to have been blown up on the journey home, but it was an error in the official records. I know the point was been made that coloured people didn’t matter so weren’t properly accounted for but it was a little to convenient. But at least it had a happy ending.