"You’re black, you’re poor, you’re ugly, you’re a woman, you’re nothing at all!" - this is the crux of the novel. As it is apparent - The Color Purple is about women - more specifically the lives of black women in the 1930s America.
If that sounds too dated, you might still want to pick up this book for its style of writing. Alice Walker has used a different genre called epistolary novels. One could not have chosen better. The writing is colloquial – just as a half-literate Black women would have written letters in real life. It is Impacting, Profound and Virgin(not-read-before). The plot is a little cliche, but it is gripping nevertheless.
Book-turn-movies usually disappoint readers. But Steven Spielberg, together with Whoopi Goldberg(Celie), Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, has made its movie version an exceptional must-watch. However, there’s a(totally convincing) le*bian angle in the book that is barely touched upon in the movie. Hence, another reason to pick up the book!:)