Book Blog Mod. 7B: Tangerine
Bloor, E. (2001). Tangerine. New York: Scholastic, Inc.
Tangerine follows the life of a young boy and his family, freshly moved to the surreal town of Tangerine, Florida. It follows the boy's life through the weird events of the town (daily lightning strikes, a giant sinkhole appearing on school grounds) and his own travels through his memory to unravel the carefully crafted picture of family perfection his parents have created.
The closest villain in the story is the older brother, Eric, who, to the author's credit, is terrifying in his understated cruelty. The horrors he performs are shown only in threats and flashbacks, but his outbursts of rage and sociopathic statements make him more terrifying than if he'd been drowning puppies. Eventually his cruelty catches up to him, but his behavior is glossed over and encouraged for years; he's the family's golden boy.
Paul's thriving in all the Tangerine weirdness is clear and understandable, as Eric reaches his downfall and Paul remembers forgotten horrors. However, the ending's ambiguity bothered me. Maybe I just wasn't an engaged reader, but Paul's triumph over his brother and reporting him to the police is also accompanied by his expulsion from his new school, which he loves, and his enrollment in a religious school. Paul says everyone in the new school will be afraid of him, and takes pleasure in it. Is he following in Eric's footsteps, or just carrying his newfound strength from his old school into the new? I found it a bit off-putting.
I admit that I had trouble with this book. I think it was a matter of personal chemistry, rather than the book's quality. I just couldn't keep track of secondary characters or get what the author was trying to get across.
Still, I'm in a minority opinion here. Publisher's Weekly (found via, once again, Bowker's Books In Print) praised the book for "wedding athletic heroics to American gothic with a fluid touch and flair for dialogue." , Common Sense Media had some interesting feedback, since some of the readers seemed to find it awesome, while others, like me, didn't quite seem to get it. However, the admin review called it "a tour-de-force melding of the physical, intellectual, and emotional in a rich, resonant story," though "sections in the first half of the book were slow."
The book has won awards for young readers across the country, and it remains popular with readers, so on the shelf it goes. I didn't care for this book, but I think it's purely a matter of taste in my case.
Tangerine follows the life of a young boy and his family, freshly moved to the surreal town of Tangerine, Florida. It follows the boy's life through the weird events of the town (daily lightning strikes, a giant sinkhole appearing on school grounds) and his own travels through his memory to unravel the carefully crafted picture of family perfection his parents have created.
The closest villain in the story is the older brother, Eric, who, to the author's credit, is terrifying in his understated cruelty. The horrors he performs are shown only in threats and flashbacks, but his outbursts of rage and sociopathic statements make him more terrifying than if he'd been drowning puppies. Eventually his cruelty catches up to him, but his behavior is glossed over and encouraged for years; he's the family's golden boy.
Paul's thriving in all the Tangerine weirdness is clear and understandable, as Eric reaches his downfall and Paul remembers forgotten horrors. However, the ending's ambiguity bothered me. Maybe I just wasn't an engaged reader, but Paul's triumph over his brother and reporting him to the police is also accompanied by his expulsion from his new school, which he loves, and his enrollment in a religious school. Paul says everyone in the new school will be afraid of him, and takes pleasure in it. Is he following in Eric's footsteps, or just carrying his newfound strength from his old school into the new? I found it a bit off-putting.
I admit that I had trouble with this book. I think it was a matter of personal chemistry, rather than the book's quality. I just couldn't keep track of secondary characters or get what the author was trying to get across.
Still, I'm in a minority opinion here. Publisher's Weekly (found via, once again, Bowker's Books In Print) praised the book for "wedding athletic heroics to American gothic with a fluid touch and flair for dialogue." , Common Sense Media had some interesting feedback, since some of the readers seemed to find it awesome, while others, like me, didn't quite seem to get it. However, the admin review called it "a tour-de-force melding of the physical, intellectual, and emotional in a rich, resonant story," though "sections in the first half of the book were slow."
The book has won awards for young readers across the country, and it remains popular with readers, so on the shelf it goes. I didn't care for this book, but I think it's purely a matter of taste in my case.