The Orange Eats Creeps

By: Grace Krilanovich

Narrated by: Angela Goethals

A MacDowell Colony fellow and a finalist for the Starcherone Prize, Grace Krilanovich was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. During the 1990s in the Pacific Northwest, a hobo vampire gang on drugs causes horrific chaos everywhere they go—from trashing supermarket breakrooms to crashing senior center pancake breakfasts. Amidst the danger one girl, who benefits (and suffers) from drug-induced ESP, searches desperately for her foster sister.

©2010 Grace Krilanovich (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Huh?

I started off reading this book, then continued on audio, and I am still very confused. This style of writing is definitely not for me, I felt I had to decipher some kind of codes to understand what was happening. There was no timeline and I felt it was jumping all over the place. It didn't stick to the plot until towards the end. Although I am curious to hear what my book club has to say.

A delirious fever dream of a book

This is definitely a "you love it or your hate it" type of book, with story taking a backseat to the sound of the words and the images they conjure. Think William Burroughs with an emotional edge and splatterpunk imagery.

When I first read it, it didn't work for me, and I ended up giving the book away. But when I listened to the sample for the audiobook, it all suddenly clicked for me and I downloaded it at once.

Narrator Angela Goethals lends the words a fury and urgency that suddenly makes clear what the text is trying to do, helping some of the author's more thoughtful literary flourishes come alive. I enjoyed it so much I bought another copy of the print edition.

Again, this is not for everybody. Sex and violence abound, but so does a type of wild-eyed mania that I can't really remember coming across outside of Burroughs.

The author is trying too hard

I couldn't get through this book. The author is trying too hard to be edgy. At times, it just feels like the author is stringing words together in hopes that it makes sense, and more often than not, it doesn't. I get that it's supposed to be viewed from the perspective of a drug addict, so maybe I'm unable to process that way of thinking, but it just seemed jumbled, like the author was trying to be poetic, but didn't really know how to be. I did not enjoy this book.

Wannabe Burroughs?

Can’t get through the first few chapters. If I was a nihilistic teen I would have loved this book, but in my 30’s it does not hit. Gross and depraved for grossness and depravity’s sake. A solid meh.

Poetic and densely beautiful

This book is not easy to read. You have to chew through it as it chews through you, but it is more than worth the work. One of my favorite reads being terrifically read.