A review by monty_reads
The Orange Houses by Paul Griffin

2.0

I actually like one this more than my two-star rating indicates, but it just tries to do too much in its 150 pages. Set in inner-city New York, Griffin's book pinballs wildly from high school bullying to teens with hearing disabilities to illegal immigration to the treatment of our Iraq war vets to the redemptive power of art. It's well-intentioned, and I like the way it's structured (moving inexorably toward the moment when one of the main characters is hanged), but as lasting work of Young Adult Lit it just doesn't quite make the cut.