Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence
Marlon at sixteen years of age was as close as you can get to being a nobody, that is, without actually being nobody. Without his Dad and brother in his life, his Mum had to sacrifice her free time and work overtime, leaving her exhausted and worn out by the time she arrived home everyday. To make matters worse, none of Marlon’s grades are up to scratch and his social life is literally next to non existent. Marlon is in essence, a nobody… Until she waltzed into his life.
Sonya Wilson, popular, beautiful and a million billion miles out of Marlon’s league, is somehow agreed to go out with him! The two met at the summer Fairground and, it’s safe to say plenty of heads turned and people stared, who could blame them? ‘The Sonya Wilson’, dating Marlon, who in their right mind could have guessed! Certainly not Marlon, that’s for sure. But maybe, just maybe there was something more at play here. Why in reality did Sonya want out with a guy like Marlon. He wasn’t popular, clever or even that good looking. Maybe it was to good to be true. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the one good thing about Marlon’s terrible life, maybe it was good enough to be true.
Was this what Marlon’s gangster brother felt like before the accident? All the girls, money, glory and of course, the accident. But Marlon could never have that, feeling of simple belonging. He’d promised his Mum he would never follow in his brother, Andre’s, footsteps and he’d stayed true to his words.
Maybe it was too good to be true, until Sonya offered him the Extacy. Wait! Why did those three hooded guys give Sonya such a hard time earlier beside the ferris wheel? And why hadn’t I stopped them. They were hardly from school, otherwise I’d have know them, yet Sonya seemed to know them well enough. So if they weren’t from school or from around here either, then how did Sonya know them at all? And how, come to thing of it, did she get those drugs? She hardly stumbled upon them on her way to the fairground. So why bring them out with me? How is all this connected? Could it have something to do with Andre’s, sudden ‘accident’? Like everything else in my life, which all somehow had something to do with Andre. And is it really my fault that Sonya Wilson’s lifeless body is held tightly in my arms as tears roll down my face?
AGE CATEGORY: 15+
TEEN RATING: 3.4/5
TEEN OVERVIEW: I was really looking forward to Orangeboy because of all the awards and prizes to it’s name but, unfortunately the book just didn’t do it for me. The character development was insane but the book was at times slightly slow and maybe a tad unrealistic for a start. As well as this it was quite depressing at times and hard to read as everything’s going wrong for Marlon and not a lot is going right for him, there’s no little payoffs along the way. Brilliant cover art, but sadly, a not so brilliant book.
