Rating: 
Summary: A soaring earthy fairytale everyone should read.
Review: This is an extraordinary work. Winterson's unflinching and unorthodox perspective on her self, her mother, and her childhood are moving, painful, uplifting and cathartic.
In addition, the English language - and even moreso, the English novel - are putty in Winterson's supple and brilliant mind. To read _Oranges_ is seemingly to follow Winterson everywhere she has ever been or thought about. Fairytales and fantasy are flawlessly
interwoven with down-to-earth autobiography of daily life:
schoolwork, emotional relationships, secrets, lies, and love.
Truely, this is a soaring and earthy fairytale that everyone should read.
Rating:
Summary: The Creation of Reality
Review: This novel has often been criticised as Winterson's best now that she has gone on to write several powerfully experimental novels. This is implying that she should have remained in these more familiar regions of experience or stuck to a slightly more conventional mode of narrative. What's tremendous about this novel is the way it works as a perfect springboard for the kind of fiction that is being so negatively criticised for its inventiveness. This is a story about a girl who is struggling with the conventions of a restrictive Pentecostal community in a small spot of England, but it is also about the interplay between reality and fiction in people's lives. Jeanette's fables are established to be as valid as the complex religious practices of her family. The characters of the novel constantly differ to a fictional artifice to hold together the reality they cannot understand. Tension builds when the fictional worlds that people struggle to hold into place contradicts other people's realities. This novel is a tribute to the fight for independence and survival. She powerfully asserts that there is a necessary space for these fictional parts of people's realities despite the conflict it will inevitably create. She suggests that the reality built in fiction is also the truth of our own fictions accepted as reality. The interplay of these two creates a living reality.
Rating: 
Summary: oranges
Review: This novel was a little slow to start, but once i got into it, i couldn't put it down. Growing up in an obsessively religious household, Jeannette Winterson writes about life as a teen girl, coming of age and figuring out that she's a lesbian. I definitely recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Autobiography!!
Review: This novel was an excellent, powerful piece of literature. Ms. Winterson did a great job, telling her story and connecting it with "fantasies". From the time, that I started reading, it was very difficult to put the book down because the book caught my attention. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read autobiographies!! ENJOY!
Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable book
Review: This quirky novel tells the story of Jeanette, who is
adpted into a very devout, Evangelical house in
England. As she grows, she begins to realize how
different she is from the people around her, whether
it's the reaction of teachers and students to her
religious views at the public school (the 'Breeding
Ground,' as her mother calls it) or her "unnatural
passion" for young Melanie who works at the fish stall
in the local market.
Her views of God, religion and the search for
perfection are all challenged by her desire to learn
more about herself. At one point, she is locked into
a room for 32 hours to "purge her of the demons" when
her church discovers her relationship with Melanie.
Through all the obstacles, she remains true to
herself.
This book is filled with both humor and drama, as well
as strong characters: the strong-willed Mother whose
ideas of God and religion make an imprint on
Jeanette's view of the world; Elsie, the only woman
who seems to truly understand what Jeanette is going
through and how to deal with it; and Jeanette herself,
a sharp young girl with strong opinions of right and
wrong and learns that it is okay to be different.
Rating: 
Summary: Very biblical
Review: This story of a "born missionary" finding herself outside the church was a good one. I was overwhelmed, however, with the biblical references and found a few typos.
Rating:
Summary: The satire bites, but the emotions remain detached
Review: This story of a young girl discovering her homosexuality within the oppressive confines of a strict Pentecostal society left me with mixed feelings. I felt that Winterson exposed the hypocrisies inherent in the Church's "love the sinner, loathe the deed" mentality (as well as many other attitudes) with an extremely sharp sense of satire - a real strength of the novel. She also brings many of these revelations across with a gentle humour which intensifies their irony as it brightens the novel. However, I felt that the depiction of the central character's "coming out" was somewhat detached and passionless. I also found Winterson's juxtaposition of fantastic "King Arthur"-style episodes with the main narrative to be somewhat crude; they could have been woven in with more fluidity and made their parallels with the story more apparent.
As a criticism of the Church's often hypocritical views on love and sexuality, this novel was bitingly effective. But as a really human story of a young woman discovering with her sexuality, it was curiously unemotive.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable read
Review: Very interesting and engrossing coming-of-age story. I enjoyed this quick read of a girl who struggles between what she has been taught is right and what feels is right in her heart. The characters are entertaining. I also enjoyed the creativity of the names of the chapters as Old Testament books and how they apply to what was happening in her life. I will be reading more books by Jeanette Winterson.
Rating:
Summary: Unnatural Passions
Review: Winterson's exploitation of her coming out as a lesbian against all odds--namely her overbearing mother and her church--sets a standard for all individuals still coming to terms with their own sexuality. In every respect, Winterson has reasons for insecurity. The same church that once embraced her condemns her for unorthodox practices; her friends mock and desert her; her mother who once expressed unconditional love towards her daughter, now disowns her. What then? Left with nothing but herself and her homosexuality, Winterson puts two and two together and creates her own world where oranges are not the only fruit. I truly admire her inner strength--if only the rest of us found love within ourselves when the world turns dark--we'd be much happier. I say, let your true self radiate from within. Life is too short to live by others' standards and criticisms.
Rating:
Summary: Language as Art
Review: Winterson's first novel is a compelling story that presages her talent for finding themes that aren't last year's, or even today's, but cut the edge of tomorrow. No less importantly, it's the first look at a word smith of the finest calibre. Every word has import and can build, nuance by nuance, into breathtaking metaphors that only emerge after you've finished the book and find yourself thinking about it. I like to read Winterson out loud, because hearing words and reading them are two different experiences. This book is a must read because the true high art of lesbian-themed writing is found here.
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