Review - "Orangeboy"

Orangeboy
by Patrice Lawrence
rating:☆☆☆☆
published: 2nd June 2016
spoilers? no

Goodreads

Tell Mr. Orange, the time has come.

Galley provided by publisher.

To be honest, I don't read a lot of contemporary young adult lit that isn't romance stuff. I don't know why, I just generally find it harder to get through and often end up giving up on it, but this one was completely different. The characters were engaging, the author kept me interested throughout and didn't hold back on the darker topics, even though this is a young adult book.

Orangeboy follows the story of Marlon after a date with a girl named Sonya ends in tragedy, and Marlon starts being hunted by people, and for reasons, unknown. As he starts to investigate further, he becomes embroiled in a world of drugs and gangs that his older brother, Andre, had once been a part of, and that Marlon had promised his mother that he himself would never join.

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this book much more than others of a similar genre that I've tried, is because I liked the characters from the off. They were easy to sympathise with and understand, and that's probably the most important thing in a book for me. If I don't like the characters, I find it really hard to get to the end of a book. It also helped that they felt realistic too. They went to school and to work, and they got scared by what they had to deal with (sometimes, reactions to what is going on in books don't feel all that real to me, because there can be life-threatening situations, but characters aren't running away when you might expect them to be. Anyway, that's beside the point).

The one issue I had with the plot is that it seemed to end pretty quickly. I mean, there was a whole book-long build up and then it was over within what seemed like only a few pages. I guess that's just a reflection of real life too, and it makes sense, but it preceded a somewhat abrupt ending overall, that left one or two questions unanswered, but I suppose, again, that's life.

Overall, this book was great. I read most of it (I think around 80% of it) in one sitting, while trying not to get too emotional over it in front of my family. That, for me, makes it pretty damn good.