Oranges are not the only fruit

Another great novel and I loved it! I like how the author makes this great autobiographical account of a teenager trying to discover her way in faith, life and love.

Jeanette was brought up in a Baptist setting by a mother obsessed of the fear of devils and sins and the permanent battle for saving your soul in case the end of the world comes sooner (every next day) than expected. She first starts to question her upbringing when she attends to public school and there, her biblical messages are not well received by others, students or teachers. There she sees that people are different and starts to question her mother intolerability towards anything that doesn’t match her system of belief or values.

Most of the things in her life fall into that category after she starts to have feelings towards a fellow Christian, Melanie. They start to have a friendship that ends up being romantic and the community is outraged by the prospect so they organize session of exorcism for her and Melanie. Melanie leaves the community, but Jeanette takes the decision to continue her work in the church, but to be still true to herself. In a way she keeps the orange colored devil inside her (the Baptist church, apparently, have a way of dividing devils by their color).

Adolescence is the period in which she discovers a lot of limitations for women and , because, her feelings had their one way she starts falling in love with Katy, which is much more open in sharing her feelings as well. They commit a small mistake when they decide to take a holiday at a pension and the community finds out that she is “possessed” once more and try to figure out the course of action. This time Jeanette leaves the church, starts to work on her one, she leaves her family home, only to return in visit after two years and discover that no matter how much you feel that you family is odd(she is an adopted girl) there are some strings in place that can make you come home. In a way we don’t have the possibility to change or to evolve without making peace with the past or letting the door open for the moment when we would like to look at our past actions or events.

Growing up is difficult, and finding out that what you knew or know is not all that is can be confusing or liberating. For Jeanette it was the latter.