Review: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Challenges: 

Bingo: Read something by Jeanette Winterson

Around the Year in 52 Books: A book with a long title (5+ words, excluding subtitle)

I have been hearing great things about Jeanette Winterson from some of my favorite Booktubers, so I was really looking forwards to this. However, I could only find the Danish edition, instead of the original English one, and I try to read books in English if they are originally written in English, just because I feel like that is the author’s unadulterated voice, if that makes sense. If I’m struggling with a translation I don’t know whether to blame the author or the translator, so I prefer to read the original language, but that’s not always possible. 

This book is an autobiographical novel about a young girl named Jeanette. Jeanette is an orphan who is taken in by a couple where the woman is very dominant. She is also very religious and she raises Jeanette in her faith. We hear about the church and its pretty intense work, Jeanette’s struggles with school when her religious beliefs become too much and her relationship with her mother. 

Jeanette starts out as a naive young girl who gobbles up everything she is told, but slowly she starts to see that there is more to life than suffering and a sharp division between sinners and saints (not that her church believes in saints - they were too extravagant). She also starts to explore her sexuality and tries to navigate the frankly hostile environment in the church when it comes to this part of life. I enjoyed this aspect of the story, but sadly I felt like that was the part that was explored least. There is a lot of talk about the work the church does and the mother’s behaviour. Then there are also stories interspersed about Arthur and his knights and I’m pretty sure there were some other off topic bits too, though I can’t really remember now. I say off topic, I honestly just think this book was too clever for me. I don’t enjoy books that have me questioning whether oranges are a metaphor for sexuality, and if her mother forgave her when she makes the statement that oranges are not the only fruit. 

In the end this book just wasn’t for me, but I haven’t given up completely on Winterson yet. I feel like her other books are quite different, both from this and from each other. That might be wishful thinking on my part, but I’m willing to give it a go. 

This book got 2 stars out of 5.