Orange Is the New Black

I feel complicated about this book and the ties it has to the portrayal of our federal Justice system. I don't think Kerman‘s account of prison is like anybody else's but I kind of expect that of every person's experience. It's interesting hearing her learn about her privilege in not a theoretical way, but directly in the context of life in a federal prison. I do acknowledge that this book, one of the few revered books about women's correctional facilities, was written by an upper class white woman. That being said, it doesn't make any of the injustices addressed in this book less true. I really did enjoy this book, and I felt that I got to learn a lot. Even if it is one specific “more palatable for audiences” perspective. I think I'm going to try to read more books on this topic specifically women's prisons in the United States, let me know if anyone has any recommendations.

A lot better than the tv series (which I started twice and didn't manage to finish), with a lot more warmth and humanity instead of the wild drama.
It's a good charachter development, at times, I felt there were either points that felt like repetitions, and others where the narration felt a bit rushed.
Overall, recommended.

Excellent story and strong narrator. Piper was so much more likable than in the TV series. It's interesting, there is so much less drama in the book than the TV series. no one really fights and the creepy guards are much more subtle.

It's always fun to read books that've been adapted to film or TV. Even though it's not as dramatic as the series, as real life rarely is, the emotion is much more genuine as the truth is always bleaker, and the little crumbs of happiness much more heartfelt.

It's a really good book, information wise and story wise. I didn't get away from it thinking how the prison system could be bettered, but knowing that it's all a sham. It's just a bunch of people with a bit of power playing with the powerless. Not different from the outside world, but much more exaggerated in that little microcosm.

3.5?

First, this is not a high drama sensational lesbian prison novel, as some reviewers seem to have expected. This is not the TV show.

There may be familiar characters you recognize by tiny snippets of their stories, but ultimately this is a memoir of Piper's life as she remembers it during her incarceration and as she made the best of a bad situation. And yes, she was a white woman of privilege when she went in and she openly acknowledges that throughout the book and that she had a different and unique experience because of it. But I can also respect that she recognized and actively pointed out the unfairness of her preferential treatment, even if she did occasionally take advantage of it. And after she left prison, she didn't just “cash out” with this book deal – she became a strong and continuing advocate for other incarcerated women and for prison reform.

I flip-flopped a lot through this book, equally liking and disliking her, and my rating is not a reflection of my opinion of her as a person. This isn't a piece of fiction with a perfect protagonist who always says and does all the right things.

I read this fairly quickly and found the day to day anecdotes, routines, and the relationships she made fascinating. Her voice transitions back and forth between her WASP upbringing to prison slang to personal desperation to advocate. It's clear there was a measure of personal growth and a deep sadness for the plight of the other women she was incarcerated with who didn't have her advantages in life. Overall, this is a well-written, interesting memoir and I'm glad to have read it.

I really didn't like this book. The writing was cliched and lazy, and the stories felt exploitative of the women she met in prison. Worse, I listened to the audiobook, which I can't anti-recommend enough. The reader chose to use exaggerated accents for everyone but the narrator, which gave the reading a semi-racist tone.

I love the tv series based on this book so I thought I'd give the book a try. The book us almost always better than the movie, right? No. I liked the book but I didn't love it. The tv series was VERY loosely based on the book. It wasn't anything like I had expected. There were not as many characters in the book as in the tv show. The book was a little dry for my taste. There wasn't much of a story to base a whole novel on.

This is one of those rare books that is not as good as the tv show. This book is a dry retelling of a jail sentence with an overarching sense of “but this is really hard and unusual for me because i'm white and a wasp.” I found it really condescending considering all the problems that exist in the american penal system.

I would have given this 3.5 stars if I could. I thought her story was interesting but could have gone into more detail into her interactions with others. It was all very high level. Interesting to gain some insight into the prison system.

A thoughtful and compassionate memoir about Kerman's time at Danbury prison and a revealing depiction of life for women in prison. Most interesting is the light she shed on illogical circumstances that land most of them there. This is not the story of the Netflix series and anyone who watches it should definitely read this non-sensationalist story of what really happened.

Interesting to hear the story that inspired the TV show.

Read this after watching the first season of the series based off it on Netflix. The book was a very interesting look into life in prison.

Much more realistic than the show, I must say I enjoyed it. Piper is such a wonderful person and if I ever wound up in prison for any reason one day I would hope that I would handle the situation as well as she did.

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Subtitle: Piper Kerman unpacks her backpack of privilege.

Oh hmm I think honestly reading this just made me more impressed with how good the show is, how much more complex it is. On the other hand I understand that Piper maybe doesn't really have the right to tell the stories of other inmates, and I know on the show they're fictionalized, but still... I'm overall more interested in most of the other inmates than Piper.

On the other hand I think I'm probably not the target audience for this book and I think there are probably a lot of people who need Piper Kerman to tell them “Hey! Prison inmates are also human beings!” Which is basically the opposite of what a lot of American media tells us, so... that's cool.

I can't stop thinking about that article I read, maybe on Racialicious? about how Orange is the New Black is reminiscent of how slave narratives always needed an introduction by an educated white person to authenticate them. And that's kind of... kind of it, honestly.

But still, she's a good writer and I enjoyed the memoir overall. It would be GR8 if this led to more women of color getting publishing deals for their prison memoirs too!! FINGERS CROSSED.

A few months ago while visiting my parents, my mom and I decided to browse in Barnes and Noble. She had a gift card, so she said I could get a book. I talked her into two. :) My second pick was “Orange Is The New Black” by Piper Kerman. When I showed the book to my mom, she asked me if I was planning on going to jail.

No, Mom.

So I had this book, and it was sitting on my nightstand, and then the “Orange Is The New Black” TV show came out and it was fantastic and everyone was raving about it, so I figured the book had to be good, right? I mean, books are always better than their movie counterparts, so I figured the same had to be true about TV shows.

Except that it wasn't. All the things I loved about the TV show — the drama, the fights, the unlikely friendships and relationships, the wit — none of them were in the book. Book Piper did her time and kept it pretty drama-free. There was no time spent in solitary confinement. No one hated her or wanted to get revenge on her. No one tried to hook up with her or kill her. There was nothing particularly exciting or terrible about it. For all the “hardships” she had to endure, she basically had a pretty cushy life for prison; people constantly sent her mail and books, she had more than enough commissary money for anything she could ever want to buy, she requested a job change so she could work outside by a pretty lake. It was kind of annoying to listen to her complain about it and then admit that she had it much better than most of the other inmates.

But I think my biggest problem with the book was that Kerman was just not a very descriptive writer. I got a lot of the characters mixed up because there weren't enough details or information about any of them to distinguish them from one another, whether they were guards, inmates, counselors or other authority figures. (It didn't help that all of the characters in the book had different names than they did in the TV show, and some of the characters in the show didn't exist in the book. I was all kinds of confused as to who was who the whole time.) Even exciting occurrences — for example, the screwdriver incident from the show — were downplayed and details scarce. I felt no passion from Book Piper about her experience or her desire to make changes for the better, despite knowing that she actually does, in real life, work to improve the prison system. I felt like this book could have been just amazing, but that justice had not been served.

I'd say, if you're going to read the book, do so before you watch the show. Because otherwise it's just disappointing.

Slow starter for me, but once she got to the prison, I was hooked.