Orange January: Month in Review

I think I set myself up for disappointment. I so thoroughly enjoyed the books I read last year for Orange July that I psyched myself up for Orange January, but atlas it was not meant to be, and I think I am partly to blame. Last year, I went through a list of all of the books that had ever been nominated for an Orange Prize, read the synopses and then selected four books that I thought sounded interesting. This time around, I read all of the books that made the 2011 Orange Prize Short List - no picking and choosing.

Last year, two of the four books I read for Orange July made it onto my 5ers list, this time around only one of the six books I read is getting that special distinction.

Emma Henderson's Grace Williams Says It Loud was a huge disappointment. There was no climax and Grace's narrative, though very informative, was missing heart and emotion. The Tiger's Wife (winner of the 2011 Orange Prize), Great House, Annabel, and The Memory of Love were all great works of fiction but they seemed to be missing that special ingredient that takes a book from very good to amazing.

Room by Emma Donaghue made it onto my 5ers list, and thus is the novel I think should have won the 2011 Orange Prize. Room was really easy to get into and very relevant with all of its similarities to the various high-profile cases that have made international news in the last couple of year. Donaghue's decision to tell the story in the voice of a very smart five-year-old boy is genius. It made all the difference in what would otherwise have been a very depressing story.

Do you know Orange?
The Orange Prize for Fiction  was set-up in 1996 to celebrates full-length works of fiction written in English by female authors around the world.