Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

11 reviews

_rowan_'s review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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nightfell's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Reading about Jeanette's heavily religious upbringing was fascinating. The sort of things she would do or say or think that was so normalised within her community then seeing the disparity in her interactions at school made for an interesting narrative. I would have liked the author to have gone into more depth relating to the queer aspect of the novel, her internal thoughts and fears that come with self-discovery and her grappling with that was a missed opportunity as her 'coming out' was so abrupt. The magical realism element was at times confusing and ultimately I found it unnecessary and distracting but I'm sure it had a literary purpose, just not one that I appreciated.

Anyone with any religious trauma, queer or not, should take caution, this is a heavy one.

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michmoo's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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blackberryjambaby's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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penofpossibilities's review against another edition

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reflective sad fast-paced

3.0

I dont know how I feel

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mold_munchr's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I've really struggled writing about how this book made me feel. It's a lot of things, and I dont know if I'd describe it as beautiful or nice in any way, and yet reading this book meant a lot to me. So much of the story felt as though someone had entered my mind and took all my experiences, and then set them 30 years earlier in another country - which I think speaks to just how universal a queer story of religious bigotry is. It made me cry. The fantasy passages especially just hit close to home for some reason, and Winterson's use of biblical imagery was beautiful and added so much to the story (though these elements might be hard to follow if you haven't had a lot of exposure to hardcore christianity).

Mostly, though, it's a story about a complex mother/daughter relationship. I really appreciated how female-centred it was (I kept forgetting Jeanette even had a father) - this book just isn't ABOUT men, so why should they take up a significant amount of space in the writing?

This review falls short of describing this book, I don't know how to encapsulate how it made me feel. It is the realization of an experience I've struggled to put into words so many times, and somehow she pulled it off.

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nicnevin's review

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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? Yes

4.0

A semi-autobiographical account of a life of a child brought up in an extreme religious background and the backlash she received when her lesbianism was discovered, I couldn't put it down. I found my mind wandering through on the fairy tale aspects - I was vastly less interested in those than the actual story.

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