Tangerine, by Edward Bloor is a book mainly about a 12 year old kid named Paul Fisher. He is the younger of two brothers in his family. His older brother Erik Fisher is the "dream" child according to his parents who only seem to care about Erik's football dream. In the beginning the family moves to Tangerine, Florida where many strange things can happen but they are all considered normal and expected. There are lighting strikes everyday at the exact same time in the exact same place. There is a never ending underground fire and a sinkhole that swallows Paul's middle school. Paul moves to Tangerine Middle where at first he is unwelcome by his new classmates. Later on he is excepted as a soccer player and enjoys his new school. Paul's brother Erik turns out to be not such a "dream" child and takes part in injuries of different people throughout the book and crime.
I enjoyed Tangerine for the most part because it was easy to relate to. They were high school and middle school kids coming from lots of different places. I liked the way the author made the dialect of the characters very realistic to their age and the way children that age talk. There were a few points where I had to go back and read over something but that comes with most books, majority of the book was very easy to understand. The way the author wrote the book, you could almost follow the character's thoughts. I felt like the author was portraying the theme that “everything is not always what it seems at first” I got this feeling in a few different places of the book. One of the places was when Paul went to Tangerine Middle School and at first he was scared but once he gave it a chance he liked it and made lots of friends. Another example of the theme was when Joey came to Tangerine Middle, Paul realized that he was not the best friend he had thought Joey was. I enjoyed Tangerine a lot more then other books we have had to read in the past.
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