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A review by janienejulia
Love Orange by Natasha Randall
3.0
Love Orange chronicles the lives of the Tinkley family: a traditional suburban family living in a stereotypical cul-de-sac. Parents Jenny and Hank relocate from the city with their two young sons: Jesse and Luke in 2014 into an Arts and Crafts home. A year later, Hank has converted their home into a smart home, which starts to feel like a strange tool of surveillance. The house, simply called ‘Home’, sometimes feels like a peculiar fifth member of the family – always there and aware, much to Jenny’s dismay, but never a full participant in the family’s affairs.
Jenny, feeling trapped in in the constructions that are motherhood and marriage, and with her new smart home watching her every move, enters a prisoner pen-pal programme and strikes up a correspondence with John, who is serving time for manslaughter. Eventually Jenny becomes the middleman between John and his wife Shona and starts to develop a curious infatuation with the orange glue that seals his letters. This growing obsession starts to consume Jenny, and proves to be much more dangerous than she could have imagined.
I immediately took to Luke, the youngest son, and felt the opposite about his father Hank. Both Jenny and Hank regard him as a little peculiar, and find his behaviour somewhat concerning, though Hank more does so more openly, with Jenny often defending him. And simply put Hank, clearly a representation of where white hegemonic masculinity meets the New Age, rubbed me the wrong way.
Love Orange is a delicate and simply read, but I was a little underwhelmed. It didn’t resonate with, and hasn’t stuck with me in the ways I initially I expected it to. The Tinkley’s are such a middle-class, white suburban family that I found them painfully unrelatable and perhaps a little uninteresting as a result, except Luke.
That said, the ending isn’t wholesome and that’s something I can really appreciate – it’s a little different, and not what anyone would want in their hearts, but it makes for an interesting, semi-thought-provoking read.
You can reads my full review here: https://readbyjaniene.com/2022/04/23/love-orange-suburban-mediocrity-meets-opioids-and-smart-homes/
And check out my bookstagram: @readbyjaniene
Jenny, feeling trapped in in the constructions that are motherhood and marriage, and with her new smart home watching her every move, enters a prisoner pen-pal programme and strikes up a correspondence with John, who is serving time for manslaughter. Eventually Jenny becomes the middleman between John and his wife Shona and starts to develop a curious infatuation with the orange glue that seals his letters. This growing obsession starts to consume Jenny, and proves to be much more dangerous than she could have imagined.
I immediately took to Luke, the youngest son, and felt the opposite about his father Hank. Both Jenny and Hank regard him as a little peculiar, and find his behaviour somewhat concerning, though Hank more does so more openly, with Jenny often defending him. And simply put Hank, clearly a representation of where white hegemonic masculinity meets the New Age, rubbed me the wrong way.
Love Orange is a delicate and simply read, but I was a little underwhelmed. It didn’t resonate with, and hasn’t stuck with me in the ways I initially I expected it to. The Tinkley’s are such a middle-class, white suburban family that I found them painfully unrelatable and perhaps a little uninteresting as a result, except Luke.
That said, the ending isn’t wholesome and that’s something I can really appreciate – it’s a little different, and not what anyone would want in their hearts, but it makes for an interesting, semi-thought-provoking read.
You can reads my full review here: https://readbyjaniene.com/2022/04/23/love-orange-suburban-mediocrity-meets-opioids-and-smart-homes/
And check out my bookstagram: @readbyjaniene