Scan barcode
A review by weebeeweebee
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
3.0
It was cool, but fundamentally quite a boring story.
Jeanette is a really intelligent author, I loved the observations she had about sexism and homophobia in the foreword, talking about how her book's been classified in stores, and that kind of confident speaking out definitely resonated with me. Another thing, is that the characters, and storytelling style of the book, are quite charming and their dialogue's funny in a very British way... down to earth energy from start to finish.
What stopped me from really getting into it though, was the actual plot. I understand most of our lives aren't that wild or eventful, and in real life quite often, if you're a queer person raised in a strict Christian home the way the protagonist is in this book, you do spend a lot of time stuck in that strict Christian bubble, either blissfully clueless of the outside world, or bored out of your mind. I don't actually want to read the ins and outs of that experience, at least not the blander bits.
That really annoyed me because clearly the mind of the protagonist, and the personality of that little world, are witty, sharp; they're entertaining. But it just felt like all that personality was wasted on mind-numbingly dull and extremist church activity. Of course, the central moments of the plot were the ones were the protagonist committed a deadly sin, and got romantically involved with someone from the same gender at church of course of course. But the way those moments were dealt with were so... underwhelming, oddly. I found myself listening to the audiobook, hearing this queer Christian conflict unfold... and just not caring.
And the sections where Jeanette would go into completely separate passages of fantasy fiction to draw a kind of metaphoric parallel were kind of cool as a structural concept, but fell flat as well. There were times where she made some awesome philosophical points though.
There's a lot of promise in this book I think, but the great personality and style of its perspective is let down by a... really boring story.
Jeanette is a really intelligent author, I loved the observations she had about sexism and homophobia in the foreword, talking about how her book's been classified in stores, and that kind of confident speaking out definitely resonated with me. Another thing, is that the characters, and storytelling style of the book, are quite charming and their dialogue's funny in a very British way... down to earth energy from start to finish.
What stopped me from really getting into it though, was the actual plot. I understand most of our lives aren't that wild or eventful, and in real life quite often, if you're a queer person raised in a strict Christian home the way the protagonist is in this book, you do spend a lot of time stuck in that strict Christian bubble, either blissfully clueless of the outside world, or bored out of your mind. I don't actually want to read the ins and outs of that experience, at least not the blander bits.
That really annoyed me because clearly the mind of the protagonist, and the personality of that little world, are witty, sharp; they're entertaining. But it just felt like all that personality was wasted on mind-numbingly dull and extremist church activity. Of course, the central moments of the plot were the ones were the protagonist committed a deadly sin, and got romantically involved with someone from the same gender at church of course of course. But the way those moments were dealt with were so... underwhelming, oddly. I found myself listening to the audiobook, hearing this queer Christian conflict unfold... and just not caring.
And the sections where Jeanette would go into completely separate passages of fantasy fiction to draw a kind of metaphoric parallel were kind of cool as a structural concept, but fell flat as well. There were times where she made some awesome philosophical points though.
There's a lot of promise in this book I think, but the great personality and style of its perspective is let down by a... really boring story.