From the Bookshelf of Reader with a Cause…

Orange Is the New Black

Piper Kerman

Start date: January 1, 2014

Finish date: February 15, 2014

Discussion: Orange is the New Black

Why we're reading this: For those of us who like reading the books before watching the Hollywood versions, and for those of us wh…more
[close] For those of us who like reading the books before watching the Hollywood versions, and for those of us who didn't even know it was a book before it became the Netflix show. Read on!

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Orange is the New Black

Danbury in the Media
By NNEDV · 5 posts · 17 views

last updated Feb 24, 2014 05:03PM

Life Behind Bars
By NNEDV · 2 posts · 10 views

last updated Feb 23, 2014 12:47PM

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What Members Thought

Dec 21, 2017 Zephyr rated it it was ok

Shelves: possible-book-club-books, need-to-see-the-adaptation, absolutely-hated, would-not-recommend

1.5 stars
I really only read this so that I could watch the series online, and it didn't at all reach the oh so great standards everyone else was saying it was.
While this was a great memoir relaying the experience of an inmate at a woman's prison, I felt it didn't reach its full potential.
First of all, was an epilogue talking about the other inmates' situations really too much? I honestly liked them better than Piper. But it really didn't sound like the friendships she made were ones she kept 1.5 stars
I really only read this so that I could watch the series online, and it didn't at all reach the oh so great standards everyone else was saying it was.
While this was a great memoir relaying the experience of an inmate at a woman's prison, I felt it didn't reach its full potential.
First of all, was an epilogue talking about the other inmates' situations really too much? I honestly liked them better than Piper. But it really didn't sound like the friendships she made were ones she kept and maintained outside of her sentence, which really is sad.
Secondly, come on: a middle-class white person in jail for a little over a year is not even remotely going to reveal the dynamics of the prison. The book champions itself for being a great book of "strip everyone down and we're all human" lessons, but it really wasn't. The ladies in prison with her were mostly non-white, uneducated, and without much going for them. Piper sorta helps the few of them she really likes and complains about shit with the others, but there is a clear disconnect. She gets privileges for being white and blonde that the others don't, and she ignores the elephant of clear injustice in the room throughout the entire book. And when she does, it's in a very flippant and offhanded way. She also writes about each of them as if she's a better person for stooping to their level and talking to such people, which irked me.
She was also too self-centered in her writing. The premise of the book was such a sensitive topic that it really can't be written the way typical memoirs are written. Had she written more about the clear injustice with statistical backup or been more world-view and not so "me, me, me" about her writing, I could have appreciated it more.
Lastly, how she wrote the ending wasn't great: it was very "welp a year of my prison life is gone; on to my privileged life with my new husband; the end." She walked out the prison doors and did nothing to improve anything for inmates; she went back to a typical job and a typical white, middle-classed life; she later saw an opportunity to make money and become famous for something she really shouldn't have; she's viewed as the modern Nellie Bly of prisons when she did next to nothing to help anyone but herself. Her attitude towards these events during the entire book was so "been there, done that" that I just couldn't take her as seriously as I wanted to.
I'd have rather read a memoir from Pop or Natalie or the other inmates with longer sentences or . ...more

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Mar 07, 2019 McKenzie rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, gender-equality, lgbtq, multicultural, audiobook, reviewed

For the full review go to www.literarydragonreviews.website/201...

“I knew that I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn’t terrified–really genuinely brave. Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe before flinging myself into something, brave enough to not abandon my true self when someone else wanted to seduce or force me in a direction I didn’t want to go, brave For the full review go to www.literarydragonreviews.website/201...

“I knew that I would have to be brave. Not foolhardy, not in love with risk and danger, not making ridiculous exhibitions of myself to prove that I wasn’t terrified–really genuinely brave. Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe before flinging myself into something, brave enough to not abandon my true self when someone else wanted to seduce or force me in a direction I didn’t want to go, brave enough to stand my ground quietly.” -Orange is the New Black
I listened to Orange is the New Black as an audiobook narrated by Cassandra Campbell on my way to work and on road trips.

After reading some reviews of Orange is the New Black I was getting quite frustrated so I decided to have a small rant.

Rant

Whether people realize it or not they are, in fact, talking more about what the prison system is like for men and women. Even if they are only doing so to state that Kerman’s memoir is not an accurate representation of that system they are still talking about it on a scale that hasn’t been matched in recent years.

Do I think Piper Kerman had the white, wealthy, short version of prison? Yes, does that make me inherently hate the book she wrote? No. She wrote her experience and pointed out that she had it easy compared to others on more than one occasion.

Not to mention most of the people trying to belittle Kerman’s time in prison and her subsequent memoir are the same people who have never faced any prison time let alone the harder version they apparently wish Kerman had to face. Her time in prison was not as gut-wrenching as it is for so many others, but that in no way makes it an easy thing to face. I think the fact that she at least took the time to write the book about the subject and open some people’s eyes is worthy of applause. Also, if you can write a better memoir about your time in prison that will be more honest and open more eyes then great DO IT and I for one will thank you for trying to make the world a better place rather than just tearing it down because her life wasn’t hard enough for you to enjoy reading about at home.

For those of you complaining that she wrote it like pop culture maybe you should read what Kerman had to say on the subject: “I hoped if I told the story the right way, in a sort of a pop culture way, that I might be able to get somebody to pick up a book about prisons who wouldn’t otherwise read it.”

And last but not least Kerman did more than just write the book. She also serves on the Board of the Women’s Prison Association and teaches inmates in prisons and uses the fame from the book to speak out about the disparities and injustices of prison life. ...more

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