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10. Reviews and ratings. Does the book belong on the list?
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Jen
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Dec 02, 2016 03:36AM
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Rating: 4 StarsRead: 2010
This is the semi-autobiographical, coming of age novel of a girl who struggles with her sexuality and religion. The book starts a little slow but builds in intensity as it progresses. Although this isn't my favorite of Winterson's novels, it is very good. It is also her first novel, written when she was in her early 20s. All the same, I am not sure if it belongs on the list. I guess I don't feel strongly one way or the other.
5 Stars from me
I love Winterson's writing and think this is a beautiful book that explores what it means to be different and to live in conflict with the beliefs of your community.
I love Winterson's writing and think this is a beautiful book that explores what it means to be different and to live in conflict with the beliefs of your community.
4 stars. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I agree with what Book wrote. This book is about being different within a group that limits differences. Getting on the list is a bit of an enigma for me. I more react to whether the book has sticking power. This book does have that. I believe this book is memorable.
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“Since I was born I had assumed that the world ran on very simple lines, like a larger version of our church. Now I was finding that even the church was sometimes confused. This was a problem. But not one I chose to deal with for many years more.”
A coming-of-age story of Jeanette Winterson who is adopted and growing up in a evangelical community in England. There wasn't anything I didn't love about this story, I especially liked the focus of the many women of the community. This was a raw, open and honest look at one girl's journey into adulthood with all the struggles that go with it including being different. It is amazing what the author achieved in a mere 176 pages.
“I knew I couldn't cope, so I didn't try. I would let the feeling out later, when it was safe. For now, I had to be hard and white. In the frosty days, in the winter, the ground is white, then the sun rises, and the frosts melt...”
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A semi-autobiographical novel about an adopted girl who grew with a zealous Pentecostal mother, gradually realising throughout her teenage years that she was a lesbian. A very readable and interesting novel about someone's determination to be herself, despite the isolation she suffered because of her religious beliefs and practices and, later, her sexual orientation.
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Rate it 3.5 stars.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit***** from me.
I thought that this was not only was a coming-of-age story of a Lancashire lass growing up in an adoptive situation in a family with Pentacostal beliefs, but also a story which examines what a novel might be and the relationship between the author and the reader in a way that is tangentially similar to Italo Calvino's on a winter's night a traveller.... She has a great ear for dialogue and, possibly because her Lancastrian dialect is intact when she reads her novel, her characters are uncannily believable. The protagonist's upbringing was narrow, but she lived in the books she read which the parallel narratives emphasise. It is a work that is an enjoyable read while bringing up interesting ideas about what a novel or an autobiography might be. It thoroughly deserves to be on the list.
4 starsThis was a reread for me and I enjoyed the book just as much on the second read as on the first. I really like Winterson's voice in this story and the way she mixes autobiographical events with stories and myths.
I agree with Kristel about the reason it belongs on the list. Winterson herself has said that she wanted to play with writing autobiography in a novel form and that not many women had done that before her.
Read: March 2018, for my TBR challengeRating: 4 stars
When searching for this book in the topics, I came over this old BOTM thread, so thought I should add my review here.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is characterized as fiction, but he story itself is very much autobiographical. The protagonist is adopted by a very religious family in Northern England, where she becomes part of a wake-up movement, and later on discovers herself as a lesbian, tearing the family and her inner circle apart. The book was beautifully written, and I look forward to reading more books by Winterson. The use of fairy tales and the title was nicely weaved into Jeanette’s coming of age story, symbolizing her disconnect from others and her struggle to find her path in a world where the beliefs of her community are in conflict with who she is.
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Rating: 4 stars
When searching for this book in the topics, I came over this old BOTM thread, so thought I should add my review here.
[book:Oranges Are Not..."
I am glad that you liked it. Most of us seemed to really have enjoyed this book. I look forward to reading more of her work.
