Synopsis
This title, the winner of the 1985 Whitbread Award for a First Novel, chronicles the struggles of a young girl against a domineering mother and the strictures of religion. The novel takes a look at religious excess and human obsession.

I've been wanting to read this for months, so was delighted to find it tucked inside a fantastic secret-santa box. Thank you so much marie-therese. Going straight to the top of MTBR!

I'm somewhat embarrassed that it has taken me over a year for this to work it's way to the top of my TBR pile; and somewhat irritated that such a little gem of a book has been sitting waiting to be read while I've been reading other things - many of which were not even half as good as this.

A curious mixture of stories and semi-autobiography which come together to shape the life of Jeanette, the adopted daughter of a church-obsessed mother and a quiet, dominated father. Oranges are not the Fruit traces Jeanette teenage years, growing up in a northern town in a community in which she never quite fits, despite her talent for preaching and her wildly imaginative ideas. The structure of the novel, skirting and spiralling between an disjointed biographical narrative and other stories which shape Jeanette's development, suits perfectly what is a gritty discourse on the nature of personality, history and memory and the importance of perspective in developing all three. And at the same time, it's an engaging, if sometimes distressing, story too.

Hubby has reminded me that I can borrow it from the library if I need to refer to it again so, as we're trying to 'de-clutter' in preparation for a house move later this year, I'm going to make this one available. I'll probably release it at the January Reading meet, if no-one requests it before then.

RELEASE NOTES:

Taking to the Reading meet at Great Expectations this evening.