Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

7 reviews

penofpossibilities's review against another edition

reflective sad fast-paced

3.0

I dont know how I feel

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Colonisation, Racism, Hate crime, Child abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Lesbophobia, Confinement, Domestic abuse, and Misogyny

Moderate: Infidelity, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Medical content, Grief, Death, Racial slurs, and Ableism

Minor: Chronic illness, Bullying, Vomit, Outing, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Slavery, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Animal death

Hallucinations, psychiatric institution, ableist slurs

mlovesbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever.

Heart-wrenching and special.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Racial slurs

mold_munchr's review against another edition

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. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Toxic relationship, Lesbophobia, and Outing

Moderate: Death, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: Racial slurs

bisexualwentworth's review against another edition

• 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

I really don't know how to feel about this one. It was very interesting. Very surreal. Very emotional. I don't think I understood all of it. Definitely the sort of odd coming-of-age story that I don't tend to encounter often and usually find interesting when I do, and this was no exception. I'm just not sure I liked it.

If you have more religious trauma than me you might connect to it more than I did.

The chunk from just after the opening until about halfway through was probably my favorite. Ironically the gay parts were not super interesting to me. Poor Melanie though.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Homophobia, Racism, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

ollie_again's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

3.5

The difficult thing with classics is that I expect to be blown away in some way or another. And if I am not impressed, utterly immersed or getting some impressive mental whiplash, I don't really care for what I'm reading. The problem for me with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is that I've never struggled with religion, as I was never religious. I didn't grow up in a religious family (extreme or not) nor was I ever surrounded by people who did. That is not a strive against the book itself, if I was only reading books that align with my own experience I would read pretty boring stuff with no room for expanding my horizons. What I'm trying to say, is that though the religious influence and struggles of the main character were the highlight of the book, I wasn't pulled into the story at all. The second fold of this is that the book is written during the third wave of feminism, there are hints at the specific strain of lesbian feminism of that time, and it goes without saying, that I was born after all that and my own ideas and ideologies lie somewhere completely different.

Putting all that aside, I did not really jive with the writing style either and while I liked some passages, the fairy tale intermission was baffling at best and I land somewhere in the middle ground for the rating of this book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry and Homophobia

Moderate: Racial slurs and Emotional abuse

garynoplastie's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Emotional abuse, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Child abuse, Misogyny, Death, and Homophobia

Minor: Medical content, Sexual content, Animal death, Racial slurs, and Vomit

sigynmoon's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

In regards to the racial slurs - Slurs for romani and inuit people are used casually within this book.