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carolineconner's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
krvxstina's review against another edition
3.0
3 stars
This was my first Tailored Book Recommendations read!
I enjoyed this in the sense that it was very similar to The Secret History and it had a cultural twist that I've never read about before. It was wonderfully written and had depth and twists I didn't expect at the time. Looking back, however, I think that it followed the dark academia formula too closely. It's exactly as I described it- Jewish The Secret History. I think I might have enjoyed all the philosophizing more if I had read this physically, but those aspects got pretty droll overall.
This was my first Tailored Book Recommendations read!
I enjoyed this in the sense that it was very similar to The Secret History and it had a cultural twist that I've never read about before. It was wonderfully written and had depth and twists I didn't expect at the time. Looking back, however, I think that it followed the dark academia formula too closely. It's exactly as I described it- Jewish The Secret History. I think I might have enjoyed all the philosophizing more if I had read this physically, but those aspects got pretty droll overall.
janeycanuck's review
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I see why this is compare to the Secret History. I liked the little bits of philosophy, religion, etc. that were peppered in through Ari's lessons but it did get to be a bit too heavy b the end. And while the book isn't light be any stretch of the imagination, it gets REALLY intense & dark at the end, which makes for a page-turner but also kinda leaves you feeling like you've been punched in the face.
chloeb35's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
hannairene3's review
4.0
I was pleasantly surprised with this one!! I absolutely adore The Secret History and while I'm not sure if it's a fair comparison, (their only similarity seemed to be something tragic happens to a group of young people which happens in like...every book) that's what got me to read The Orchard, so whatever works!
This was definitely a long one, not in a descriptive wordy kind of way, but it definitely covers a lot of time, and you can tell. Hopen kept me interested for all 500 pages, which isn't an easy task. The entire story seemed to take place within the last 100 pages, which was a little strange, but the first 75% of the book somehow didn't feel lacking. The writing wasn't necessarily lyrical, but it was still beautiful and exaggerative and stayed in line with the Literature-loving protagonist. At times the secondary characters blended together and felt a little bit 2 dimensional, which was unfortunate & will keep this book from getting that last star, but any story that breaks my heart gets a high rating.
It's an easy and even 4 stars for The Orchard.
This was definitely a long one, not in a descriptive wordy kind of way, but it definitely covers a lot of time, and you can tell. Hopen kept me interested for all 500 pages, which isn't an easy task. The entire story seemed to take place within the last 100 pages, which was a little strange, but the first 75% of the book somehow didn't feel lacking. The writing wasn't necessarily lyrical, but it was still beautiful and exaggerative and stayed in line with the Literature-loving protagonist. At times the secondary characters blended together and felt a little bit 2 dimensional, which was unfortunate & will keep this book from getting that last star, but any story that breaks my heart gets a high rating.
It's an easy and even 4 stars for The Orchard.
katie_esh's review
2.0
As wildly unrelatable as this book was, my main issue with it was the length. It's a 17 hour audiobook, and I felt it was repeating the same idea for the first ten hours. Ari is catapulted from a strict Orthodox Jewish community into a more lenient, opulent society in Florida. He becomes absorbed into the most popular group of senior students at an elite academy, and of course, is bewitched by the beautiful girl at the top of the class. Ari's adherence to the customs he's practiced his entire life weans, and is led into a life of constant partying and what seems to be very little parental supervision. This is essentially all that's discussed for the first half of the book. The second half then takes a shift to the moral and ethical questions surrounding different traditions of Judaism, complete with multiple reckless near-death and deadly experiences to test one's worthiness. Ultimately, the females were flat, the core friend group was often insufferable, and the book was just too damn long.
lilcoop71's review
1.0
It’s been a while since I really hated a book. This was absolutely ridiculous. Wow.
boltonmi's review
3.0
This novel was an interesting read, dripping with philosophy, religion, literature—often seeming a bit pretentious. Although the pretentiousness was fitting for the group of privileged teens the book follows. It was reminiscent of The Secret History mashed up with a modernized Lord of the Flies. Toward the end the characters and their affectations became a bit exhausting. Overall pretty enjoyable but parts were cumbersome.
emjay2021's review
3.0
There are inevitable comparisons to be made between Donna Tartt's The Secret History and David Hopen's book The Orchard: both are narrated in the first person by an older character looking back at his younger self; both are set in elite educational institutions with a smaller exclusive group of friends as the focus. Both feature characters interested in discussing The Big Questions: what is the purpose of life? What does it mean to be a good person? What is the role of spirituality in everyday life? What does it take to drive someone to madness and destruction?
According to the publisher's description, the title is a reference to "a Talmudic legend in which four rabbis enter 'an orchard' and emerge fundamentally changed." Judaism plays a significant role in this novel; the narrator, Ari, is an Orthodox Jewish teenager whose parents suddenly uproot themselves from Williamsburg, New York City, and move to Florida, where Ari is enrolled in a competitive, academically oriented Jewish high school. There, despite (because of?) his clear outsider status, he is quickly included in the school's "golden group" of young men: athletic, good looking, academically gifted. Among the group is Evan, intense, bitter, and prone to lashing out at those who express concern for him. Ari never stops feeling uneasy around Evan, despite observing that the others in the group clearly care about him.
It's best not to know too much about the plot before going in, but since the publishers (and I) have already compared it to The Secret History, you can probably guess that there will be conflict, secrets, and life-altering events.
What I enjoyed about the book: 1. The dialogue (and there's a lot of it) is well written. 2. The details about Jewish practices at home and at the school were really interesting to me as an outsider. 3. I also liked the description of Ari's initial adjustment period when moving from ultra-Orthodox Williamsburg life to the shockingly permissive life in the Modern Orthodox community in Florida. 4. The last section of the novel, where the real action begins (and ends), kept me turning the page.
What left me dissatisfied: 1. Ari is hard to connect with as a protagonist. His voice is strangely distant and cool (perhaps because he is supposed to be narrating it from adulthood?), and it just didn't work for me. 2. The middle 50% of the book is quite slow. A lot happens at the beginning and end of the book, and those were the parts I was most engaged by, but I found myself wishing in the middle that it would pick up and that something would happen. 3. I would have liked to have seen more depth to the female characters, particularly Ari's mother and Sophia. Unfortunately, Sophia comes across mostly as an Alluring Mysterious Beautiful Girl of Sadness.
After finishing The Orchard, I am curious whether I would enjoy The Secret History as much now as I did when I read it nearly 20 years ago. I loved it at the time, but something tells me I might not be able to connect with it as much now. And perhaps that is the issue I had with The Orchard.
Thank you to the publisher, Ecco, for providing the advance review copy via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. A copy of this review is also on the Edelweiss+ site and my blog.
According to the publisher's description, the title is a reference to "a Talmudic legend in which four rabbis enter 'an orchard' and emerge fundamentally changed." Judaism plays a significant role in this novel; the narrator, Ari, is an Orthodox Jewish teenager whose parents suddenly uproot themselves from Williamsburg, New York City, and move to Florida, where Ari is enrolled in a competitive, academically oriented Jewish high school. There, despite (because of?) his clear outsider status, he is quickly included in the school's "golden group" of young men: athletic, good looking, academically gifted. Among the group is Evan, intense, bitter, and prone to lashing out at those who express concern for him. Ari never stops feeling uneasy around Evan, despite observing that the others in the group clearly care about him.
It's best not to know too much about the plot before going in, but since the publishers (and I) have already compared it to The Secret History, you can probably guess that there will be conflict, secrets, and life-altering events.
What I enjoyed about the book: 1. The dialogue (and there's a lot of it) is well written. 2. The details about Jewish practices at home and at the school were really interesting to me as an outsider. 3. I also liked the description of Ari's initial adjustment period when moving from ultra-Orthodox Williamsburg life to the shockingly permissive life in the Modern Orthodox community in Florida. 4. The last section of the novel, where the real action begins (and ends), kept me turning the page.
What left me dissatisfied: 1. Ari is hard to connect with as a protagonist. His voice is strangely distant and cool (perhaps because he is supposed to be narrating it from adulthood?), and it just didn't work for me. 2. The middle 50% of the book is quite slow. A lot happens at the beginning and end of the book, and those were the parts I was most engaged by, but I found myself wishing in the middle that it would pick up and that something would happen. 3. I would have liked to have seen more depth to the female characters, particularly Ari's mother and Sophia. Unfortunately, Sophia comes across mostly as an Alluring Mysterious Beautiful Girl of Sadness.
After finishing The Orchard, I am curious whether I would enjoy The Secret History as much now as I did when I read it nearly 20 years ago. I loved it at the time, but something tells me I might not be able to connect with it as much now. And perhaps that is the issue I had with The Orchard.
Thank you to the publisher, Ecco, for providing the advance review copy via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. A copy of this review is also on the Edelweiss+ site and my blog.
alisonyx's review
4.0
This is one of those books that really doesn't deserve 4 stars, but I'm giving it 4 anyway because at no point was I bored, and I really, really wanted to know what was going to happen at the end.
But still...there were so many problems and things that irritated me. First of all, no fucking teenagers walk around quoting Shakespeare, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, to name a few. None. Zero. Especially not ones who've spent the majority of their schooling in an extremely sheltered religious school where they barely learned any math (I mean...he takes geometry as a senior at his new school...). The pontification and religious ramblings were way too much for me to handle. And not only are they having these conversations at all, but they're having them while they're drunk and high. And listen, I went to a rich high school where kids showed up high, did tons of drugs, acted like damn fools all the time, and I can think of one person who was able to academically function at the level of Evan and Ari (oddly enough...I think he went to Stanford).
Also...were we supposed to think the acid trip was really an acid trip? Was it just that they were on a LOT of acid that they lost 2 days of their lives and had such vivid, dream-like hallucinations? Because I've done hallucinogens and believe me, the weirdest shit I saw was tattooed grass and a dog with four eyes, and I did a shit ton of laughing. I did not travel to heaven and wear purple robes.
I actually didn't have a problem with the lackluster female characters. Not everything needs to have representation of every single group. At the end of the day, this book is about the relationship between these five boys, and how they irreversibly change one another's lives. Of course there had to be a love interest who was nothing more than a love interest because it's a book about teenagers.
And lastly...if Rabbi Bloom was so invested in the well-being of these boys, then why the hell didn't he do anything about Evan, who very clearly has some sort of schizoaffective disorder. The kid is very obviously manic and seriously psychotic. Like, not existential literature exploring human behavior kinda psychotic, but genuinely PSYCHOTIC.
Actually that wasn't the last thing - Ari going from an ultra-Orthodox community to being able to stay out late and never have a curfew was entirely unrealistic but I just suspended my disbelief on that one.
Yet here I am giving it 4 stars. Why? I couldn't tell you. I wanted to know what happened. I liked Ari (mostly). Maybe it reminded me a little bit of my high school years - albeit extremely exaggerated and also I did not go to a Jewish school/am not Jewish. Something about it intrigued me, resonated with me. And here we are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But still...there were so many problems and things that irritated me. First of all, no fucking teenagers walk around quoting Shakespeare, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, to name a few. None. Zero. Especially not ones who've spent the majority of their schooling in an extremely sheltered religious school where they barely learned any math (I mean...he takes geometry as a senior at his new school...). The pontification and religious ramblings were way too much for me to handle. And not only are they having these conversations at all, but they're having them while they're drunk and high. And listen, I went to a rich high school where kids showed up high, did tons of drugs, acted like damn fools all the time, and I can think of one person who was able to academically function at the level of Evan and Ari (oddly enough...I think he went to Stanford).
Also...were we supposed to think the acid trip was really an acid trip? Was it just that they were on a LOT of acid that they lost 2 days of their lives and had such vivid, dream-like hallucinations? Because I've done hallucinogens and believe me, the weirdest shit I saw was tattooed grass and a dog with four eyes, and I did a shit ton of laughing. I did not travel to heaven and wear purple robes.
I actually didn't have a problem with the lackluster female characters. Not everything needs to have representation of every single group. At the end of the day, this book is about the relationship between these five boys, and how they irreversibly change one another's lives. Of course there had to be a love interest who was nothing more than a love interest because it's a book about teenagers.
And lastly...if Rabbi Bloom was so invested in the well-being of these boys, then why the hell didn't he do anything about Evan, who very clearly has some sort of schizoaffective disorder. The kid is very obviously manic and seriously psychotic. Like, not existential literature exploring human behavior kinda psychotic, but genuinely PSYCHOTIC.
Spoiler
He tries to murder Ari. He drugs his friends with some sort of super-LSD. He SETS HIS SCHOOL ON FIRE (which I predicted about 25% through the book, by the way.) And they even note that he writes completely incoherent ramblings in the margins of the literature they're discussing. Dude is s i c k a s f u c k.Actually that wasn't the last thing - Ari going from an ultra-Orthodox community to being able to stay out late and never have a curfew was entirely unrealistic but I just suspended my disbelief on that one.
Yet here I am giving it 4 stars. Why? I couldn't tell you. I wanted to know what happened. I liked Ari (mostly). Maybe it reminded me a little bit of my high school years - albeit extremely exaggerated and also I did not go to a Jewish school/am not Jewish. Something about it intrigued me, resonated with me. And here we are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯