Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

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Our July Book of the Month is Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson.

The book is a semi-autobiographical story about a young girl named Jeanette. As she grows older, she begins to explore and discover her unorthodox homosexuality. Amidst an unwelcoming Pentecostal community in the English midlands and subjected to emotional and physical abuse, Jeanette struggles to come to terms with what she feels and what she is told to feel. Themes of youth, adolescence, family, homosexuality, religion, and love come together to create a shockingly vibrant and emotive novel.

An older book than our previous Book of the Month picks, we thought in the wake of London Pride Month, what better way to demonstrate that Pride Month should be every month than with a powerful and exceedingly transgressive representation of love and humanity in the form of Winterson's book.

Winterson rejects the label of 'lesbian novel' for Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, claiming that fiction should be for everyone and anyone. We couldn't agree more, and we hope you love this book as much as we do! Full review coming soon.