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A review by sophiasahota
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
"I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.”
I found Winterson’s storytelling creative and unlike a lot of the books I read, which are usually just the conventional chronological story with no offshoots or anecdotes or allegories. The extreme evangelical sect the main character Jeanette is raised in teaches quite little about romantic love, let alone queer love, so when Jeanette falls in love with Melanie (another girl in the church), it is the most innocent/natural/pure strain of queer love you can imagine. They don’t even know that romantic love between two women is an option, and they know it’s maybe wrong but no one educated them on why. So they have this beautiful relationship that has no precedent, no rules, no example. And it is so organic.
“I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy."
This quote. You may not relate or agree, but this is my review and I relate AND agree. I am in this constant war with my queerness, and this was like one of those little easter eggs where it’s like yeah if you related to this that hard then you’re probably a lesbian and you should accept that sooner rather than later. But I’m not gonna get into that just yet on Good reads.
Overall: short read, not my favorite type of storytelling but I still appreciated it. I honestly wish it was longer and more in depth, but I guess that would not be compatible with the author’s style of writing here.
I found Winterson’s storytelling creative and unlike a lot of the books I read, which are usually just the conventional chronological story with no offshoots or anecdotes or allegories. The extreme evangelical sect the main character Jeanette is raised in teaches quite little about romantic love, let alone queer love, so when Jeanette falls in love with Melanie (another girl in the church), it is the most innocent/natural/pure strain of queer love you can imagine. They don’t even know that romantic love between two women is an option, and they know it’s maybe wrong but no one educated them on why. So they have this beautiful relationship that has no precedent, no rules, no example. And it is so organic.
“I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy."
This quote. You may not relate or agree, but this is my review and I relate AND agree. I am in this constant war with my queerness, and this was like one of those little easter eggs where it’s like yeah if you related to this that hard then you’re probably a lesbian and you should accept that sooner rather than later. But I’m not gonna get into that just yet on Good reads.
Overall: short read, not my favorite type of storytelling but I still appreciated it. I honestly wish it was longer and more in depth, but I guess that would not be compatible with the author’s style of writing here.