Book Review: “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

Jul 26

Håfa adai! June is Pride Month in the United States, a celebration of the culture and contributions of those identifying in any part of the Pride spectrum. In the second to fourth Mondays of June 2025, I will post reviews for books across various genres that highlight experiences and stories within the LGBTQIA+ community. My fourth selection of Pride Month 2025 is The Color Purple by Alice Walker, a book identified by the American Library Association as “frequently challenged” in the United States.

This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.

Click on the tags at the bottom of this post to see all reviews with the same tags in the Fiction bookshelf.

Spoiler-Free Plot Summary

Born in rural 1930s Georgia, in the heart of the Jim Crowe-era Untied States, Celie and Nettie’s lives went in directions neither of the sisters could have anticipated: Celie would remain in Georgia, while Nettie would spend decades of her life pursuing mission work in Africa. Although separated by time and space, and tested by fears and doubts, Celie and Nettie’s bond would be sustained by letters from one sister to the other as each woman grows to understand how they want to live their life and who they want to share it with.

Important Trigger Warning for The Color Purple

The Color Purple opens with a scene depicting sexual assault, specifically the rape of a young girl by a family member. The rest of the story depicts domestic violence, other scenes of domestic assault, racism, and explicit language. These themes are essential to the plot. If these would cause you distress or discomfort in any way, then please make sure to take necessary steps to prepare and protect yourself before and after reading this book.

Why are books challenged in the United States?

Since 1990, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has been responsible for documenting attempts to ban books in libraries and schools throughout the United States. According to recent data compiled by the OIF, attempts to ban books are shifting from individual parents to groups of like-minded individuals organizing on social media (and other platforms) to challenge books perceived to offend the groups’ values. The OIF states that data compiled on such groups demonstrates “a growing, well-organized, conservative political movement, the goals of which include removing books about race, history, gender identity, sexuality, and reproductive health from America's public and school libraries that do not meet their approval.” In other words, conservative groups in the United States choose to challenge certain published works if those works do not reflect the specific groups’ conservative values.

Why is The Color Purple challenged in the United States?

According to the American Library Association, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple ranks 50 among the 100 most frequently challenged books in the United States between 2010 and 2019. The Color Purple is challenged by conservative-minded groups due to its depictions of domestic violence, sexual violence (especially with how it depicts incestuous rape), racism, and explicit language as well as its depictions of homosexuality and its use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE, also sometimes referred to as Black English or Ebonics).

My Thoughts on The Color Purple: 4.5 stars

I had originally intended for this review to be posted on Monday, 23 June 2025. I was able to finish the book in time, but I was unable to get to writing the book review until over a week later. Although my book reviews are meant to be brief spoiler-free reviews of a given work, I prefer to take the time to compose a meaningful review that can accurately and articulately convey my thoughts on the book’s content. Most importantly, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple tells an important story at the intersectionality of experiences between African American women and queer women in the early 1900s Jim Crowe-era United States.

The Color Purple is primarily told through the first-person epistolary form, following the letters written by Celie first to God and then to her younger sister Nettie, with some letters being written by Nettie to Celie. Taking place throughout the 1930s, Celie spends her timeline of the story in rural Georgia, while her sister Nettie spends 20 years of her life in Africa. Their personal experiences in separate parts of the world reveal the very different kinds of lives to be lived by African American women. Without going into too much detail to avoid spoilers, Alice Walker presents the separate timelines in a way that seems linear but then takes a seemingly sinister and non-linear turn.

The themes explored throughout The Color Purple, as well as the language used to explore those themes, are the reasons this book has been considered contentious and has been challenged since its publication in the 1980s. Instead of focusing on challenging or banning a book for depicting the real-life terrors faced by people living in a certain time and place, and the language used by a certain demographic, I want to focus on why the story gets the name The Color Purple. In a letter written by Celie to her sister Nettie, a character named Shug states “it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Although this is not the first time Alice Walker explicitly calls the reader’s attention to the color purple, this line is where Alice Walker brings out its significance to the story’s overall message.

From my interpretation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, the title alludes to the transformative journey that Celie and Nettie go on over the course of 20 years. While staying in Georgia, Celie comes to acknowledge and accept who she is, even going through a period struggling to accept that the person she loves is with someone else. During her time in Africa, Nettie is forced to confront how West Africans perceive African Americans and must come to terms with the difference between being an African American in America and an African American in Africa.

My overall rating for The Color Purple is 4.5 out of 5 stars. This another one of those book’s considered a classic of American literature that I just had never gotten around to reading before. And one of my favorite aspects of heritage months or other themed months is that they move a book from my “to be read someday” list to my “to be read this month” list. The Color Purple explores intense and uncomfortable yet greatly important themes relevant to American history and the history of Pride in the United States. I highly recommend The Color Purple to those interested in reading classics in American literature, those interested in looking at uncomfortably realistic depictions of violence and race, and those who want to see historic depictions of LGBTQIA+ relationships.

Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

Rating Cheat Sheet

4.75 - 5.00 stars: Everyone should read this book! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I won’t revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book. I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it.

Post Date: 4 July 2025