Tangerine

by Edward Bloor

A modern-day classic underdog story to share with middle graders alongside such favorites as Wonder, Holes, and Bridge to Terabithia. Paul Fisher sees the world from behind glasses so thick he looks like a bug-eyed alien. But he’s not so blind that he can’t see there are some very unusual things about his family’s new home in Tangerine County, Florida. Where else does a sinkhole swallow the local school, fire burn underground for years, and lightning strike at the same time every day? The chaos is compounded by constant harassment from his football-star brother. Adjusting to life in Tangerine isn’t easy for Paul—until he joins the soccer team at his middle school. With the help of his new teammates, Paul begins to discover what lies beneath the surface of his strange new hometown. And he also gains the courage to face up to some secrets his family has been keeping from him for far too long. In Tangerine, it seems, anything is possible. "A richly imagined read about an underdog coming into his own." —BCCB

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Sports, School, Middle Grade, Mystery

320 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Edward (William) Bloor

Personal Information: Born October 12, 1950, in Trenton, NJ; son of Edward William and Mary (Cowley) Bloor; married Pamela Dixon (a teacher), August 4, 1984. Father to a daughter and a son. Education: Fordham University, B.A., 1973.

Career: Novelist and editor. English teacher in Florida public high schools, 1983-86; Harcourt Brace School Publishers, Orlando, FL, senior editor, beginning 1986.

* Tangerine, Harcourt Brace (San Diego, CA), 1997.
* Crusader, Harcourt Brace (San Diego, CA), 1999.
* Story Time, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2004.
* London Calling, Knopf (New York, NY), 2006.
* Taken, Knopf (New York, NY,) 2007.

Media Adaptations:
Tangerine audiobook, Recorded Books, 2001.
Story Time audiobook, Recorded Books, 2005.
London Calling audiobook, Recorded Books, 2006.

Reviews

[Mitch Komp · Rating 1 out of 5]

THIS BOOK WAS SO BAD I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN IT. IT WAS THE WORST BOOK I'VE EVER READ. IT IS SO BORING AND DRY. I WILL NEVER READ AN EDWARD BLOOR BOOK AGAIN. I THINK THIS BOOK ACTUALLY MADE ME THROW UP AND I STARTED BLEEDING OUT OF MY NOSE.

[Chris Donaldson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I tell you except my daughter Phoebe is reading this. She's in 7th grade up here in Washington State and she brought it home and laid it down with a big thud and a groan and "Here it is, Dad. I can't believe you want to read it too." Which is something I'm trying to do: read all the books my two daughters are reading, which is surprisingly easy since kids these days don't do much reading it appears at all in school. Novels anyway.
So I dug in and was immediately swept up in this story about a 7th grader who moves from the boring suburbs of Houston to a strangely overdeveloped region in Florida - another suburb once proudly occupied by tangerine groves, the best in the world. But this 7th grader is far from boring, he has a spine, a heart, and pair of glasses about an inch thick that become a lynchpin to a much darker deeper secret that had me turning the pages.... turning the pages.... until Phoebe had to rip it from my cold dead hands. "Dad," she said. "Slow down. You're ahead of me all of a sudden." But I couldn't slow down. I finished it just like that. And loved it.
The real beauty? So much to talk about. With my daughter. With myself. A great self-reflection in what it means to be growing, to be be giving, a piece of fine citrus upon the tongue. Few things are as sweet.

Thank you, Edward Bloor. And thank you, Tangerine.

[Jumana Abou-karr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tangerine by Edward Bloor is a novel about the Fisherman family and their sons, Erik and Paul. They moved from Texas to Lake Windsor Downs in Tangerine County, Florida. One of the sons is legally blind.His whole life he was told that he was blind because he stared into a full solar eclipse when he was young,but doesn't remember.Now he is in a particular time in his life where he is starting out in a new school.Their Dad is also plays a roll in why they moved due to his job as a civil engineer.
When they started school Erik was already getting busy with his football dream. His Dad called it the "Erik Fishermen football dream" and this kinda left Paul in the blue.After exploring the middleschool, Paul tried out for the soccer team on the first day, he impresses the students with him in soccer.But he is later told by the coach that he is not eligible to play on the team, due to liability issues, because he has an IEP filled out by his mom for him because of his visual impairment.
After Paul and Erik get settled they meet Mike and Joey Costello, their neighbors. When football season started for Mike and Erik, Mike was struck by lightening during practice which resulted in him dying. The parents argue about practice and how they thought they shouldn't have it because of Mike's death.
Florida is known to have many sinkholes and many natural disasters. Soon after, while Paul is at school, a field of classroom trailers at the school collapse into a sinkhole. Many people, including Paul and Joey, try to rescue the people who are trapped and fortunately, no one gets seriously injured. The emergency relocation plan gives the kids the choice to stay with a different schedule and more crowded classes or go to Tangerine Middle School, the school on the other, poorer side of the county.Soon after, Joey starts to get sick of Tangerine Middle because none of Paul's new friends don't think he is cool and he thinks that Paul acts mean around the other students at school, especially those on the soccer team. After almost getting into a fight, Joey finally goes back to Lake Windsor, leaving Tangerine Middle School and their soccer team.
Paul finally has a flashback from his childhood, the day his vision was damaged. Erik said that Paul told on him and his friend Vincent Castor for spray painting a wall in their old neighborhood, so to get back at him, Erik held Paul's arms behind his back and held open his eyes while Vincent Castor sprayed spray paint in Paul's eyes. Paul is furious with his parents for lying to him all these years and finally confronts them about how his vision was really damaged. His parents insist they were trying to do the right thing and protect him from growing up hating his brother, but Paul persists and says that instead of hating his brother, he's been hating himself all along. Paul ends up getting moved to a private school.
I think that the author handled the issues very well. I feel like the story teaches a lesson to the parents to not lie to your children because they will end up finding out everything eventually. Also you're teaching a wrong lesson to your children in which causes a lot more issues. But overall I do recommend this book but sometimes the plot and issues can get a bit confusing.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I figured out which shelves to put this on, I was realizing that Bloor really tried to pack a lot of issues into a relatively short book and he did an excellent job of it. There's the racism/classism stuff and environmentalism (or lack thereof) and disabilities and how they are dealt with in the school system and lots of inequity that isn't related to race or class and farming and safe driving and sports and bulleying and and and.

The story is compelling. The characters are beyond believable and this is the sort of book I would love to teach because it has something for everyone who might read it. Too bad the kids I'm teaching now are a little young for it...

[Casey Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually the best book I've read before, even though I don't read much. I can relate to it a lot, because it's about soccer, and I play it a lot. In this book, Paul Fisher is a young boy who moved from Texas, too Tangerine, Florida. He goes to a school where he can finally play soccer, but then has a conflict because of his impaired vision. That is a whole different part of the story, my favorite part. His parents have been lying to him his whole life about why he has impaired vision. Erik, Paul's brother, is not a nice brother at all, they do not get along what so ever. Paul is terrified of Erik. Later in the story, you find out the bad stuff that Erik gets into, and how he is part of Paul's vision problems. I recommend this book to anyone, best book ever.

[Lauren Boyer · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book made me cry not cause it was sad because i hated it

[Alissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was depressing. It's about a little boy who is mostly blind but can't remember why, and is terrified of his psycho older brother, who everyone else thinks is wonderful. There's a lot of soccer, and that's the only part I liked. They lived in some crazy little town where weird things happen. In reality, no one would ever want to live there. People die and there is no real moral to the story, although you do eventually found out how he went blind - and it's horrifying. I finished the book thinking, "Seriously? I can't believe I wasted my time reading that." I gave hours to that book and it gave me nothing back.

[Asghar Abbas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I have ever been this furious, this hopping-mad, indignant, filled with righteous anger, seething with a Jane Eyre type impotent rage, as when I was reading this novel. Lemme think about it? Nope. Never. This is the only one.

Because I kinda figured out what was happening and what was the reason behind our hero's tragic condition. What had happened? Now that is something really revolting. Not to mention, unfair.

Look, I get it; parenting is hard. Not everyone is cut out to be parents and certainly, some shouldn't even be one. But the level of negligence and utter neglect not only takes the cake but the entire goddamn bakery, too. In fact, it took the Red Riding Hood Bakery, one of my favorite places here in my new personal wasteland.

What do you do when someone who hurts your child is also your child? For sure, no child should be exempt from accountability nor from your succor and more importantly unconditional love and parental support. How do you forgive one while aiding the other? Here, they did one but not the other. The promises made silently, do they get lost in the shuffle somehow? How do you protect a child, and here's a truly important question; how do you punish one, the one who is guilty? If you are absolving the remorseless one, then you are the one who is guilty, not just someone who benefits from your biased treatment.

Our brave protagonist's eyesight was impaired in this book, but it was his parents who were truly blind. In spite of his handicap, he saw things he wasn't supposed to. But despite his skin, he had a thicker skin. Love the grandparents though.

More of this kind of YA, please. Very confident writing I must say and I will say the author has a firm grip on his pen. Watch out for his Crusader, too. One of the best YA around. Read it. Read them both.

I guess you'll have to read this novel to know what I am rambling about so incoherently, now don't you?

[✨faith✨trust✨pixiedust✨ Dead Account; Not Coming Back · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wrote an essay for this book in the 7th grade without actually reading it and got 100%

(I did read it eventually, though, obviously)

[Mitchell · Rating 1 out of 5]

so horrible made me dislike words

[Cathleen]

"Tangerine" is about a blind boy who realizes why he is blind. I thought that this book was so metaphoric. I don't think the story is about the blind boy, Paul, though, I think it is about his brother Eric. I think that this story has a shadow of it, showing the actions and thoughts that make up a psychopath. Eric has caused a lot of trouble by stealing, spray-painting his brother's eyeballs, and killing people. I think that by putting the thought of soccer and football, it relates to all the kids who don't have a good income and depend on these kinds of sports scholarships, especially Cubans who live in Miami or Latina families in California. I think that these kinds of things, like punching, happens all the time, but this book really helps people come to a sense that they may be killing that kid.

[Nicholas · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books. DO NOT READ!

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, so I had to read this book last year in my literacy class and let me just say that it was absolutely HORRIBLE. I don't know how to explain just how bad it is, it almost literally made me want to throw the book off a cliff because there would be no other use for it. Well, maybe we can use it as kindling. BUT NOTHING ELSE. The older brother SPRAYED SPRAY PAINT INTO HIS FREAKING EYES; IT MADE HIM LEGALLY BLIND. This book disappointed me on Brobdingnagian proportions.

[Mango · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad! I read this for school, in seventh grade. It was honestly quite good!
There were many morals and themes which were portrayed throughout the book.

However, there were some parts which were slow, which is why I took off one star.

But, otherwise I enjoyed it. It was quite fun discussing this book with my classmates. :)

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live in Tangerine. Well, at least near it. The real town of Tangerine is in Orange County, Florida, about ten miles south of where I live in Lake County, and the resemblances between the fictional town and the real one are close. That's what drew me to the book, but its story kept me going. There are two boys in this family, who have just moved to a large cookiecutter house in Lake Windsor, a swanky subdivision in this town northwest of Orlando. Older son Erik: football hero, egotistical, nasty. Archetypal older brother. Younger son, Paul, our hero: introspective, alert, insightful, analytical, and - oh, yeah - a fierce soccer player, a strength ignored by the football-crazy father and tolerated by the social climbing mother. He wears thick glasses, and there's a mystery here: something in his past caused his eye problems, but no one talks about it and he can't remember. Tangerine the town is a character in the story, too, because it was the heart of the tangerine business in Florida, and its original residents are Latino families of a different social class. They go to Tangerine Middle and High Schools, and Paul and Erik are at Lake Windsor Middle and High Schools. Paul discovers that the soccer team at Tangerine is better - and meaner - than the one at Lake Windsor, and he asks for a transfer. As the story develops, we see Paul generate deep relationships with Tangerine and its students as Erik demonstrates his truly evil nature. Erik almost becomes a football star, but falls in a stunning ending. Paul learns about true friendship and leadership - and discovers why he has eye trouble.

Occasionally you realize this book was written 15 years ago (the tech stuff gives it away), but the story is timeless, so that makes no difference. No "social problems" creep in - no drugs, no pregnancies, no hint of sexuality. The story is about how kids get along, and about soccer. It's well constructed, well written, worth a read.

[Freddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it in 7th Grade in school as required reading. Out of all the books I read that year, I personally found "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie was (and is still) the best. However, this came in second.


This book about a boy who is nearly blind and moves to Florida. The book generally was quite nice. However, I felt the plot was a tad bit weird, and the description of how he was blinded somewhat creepy and icky. However, overall, it was an ok book to read that someone else might have enjoyed more.

[OliveTree · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely despise this book. Lterally the worst thing i've read for school, its a long pointless conveyor belt of themes that lead nowhere and characters with no archs wrapped up in pretention.

[David Gutierrez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fudge! I wrote a status update for this book, but it didn't update as I put "I've finished this book" instead... So sad... I cri evry tim. Okay... So part three of this book is the best part! It gets so tense and extremely suspenseful near the end. It has some extremely funny parts and some sad parts. It finally reveals why Paul has impaired vision. Something that kind of made me very mad is that :

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT. YOU HAVE BEANED WARNED.

Erik did not get his proper punishment, I felt like he too, should have been arrested.
It ends off with Paul and his mom at the mall, and Paul going to the Church school thing.
I didn't like that Luis died, I felt he should have been a much more major character. He is the tangerine so why isn't he a major character, he would have connected very well with Paul.
I also dislike the fact that Paul has no girlfriend, when I heard about Kerri back in page... 37? I thought they would have been dating.

SPOILERS END HERE.

Overall the book is very good and I definitely recommended to anyone who is interested in a comedic, mystery and action type of book. 10/10 - IGN.

#DuaneIsTheRealMVP

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sibling conflict in "Tangerine" is raw, heartbreaking, frightening, and maddening. Bloor reveals the pivotal source of the conflict in slow, re-captured memories, until the climax, when the main character, Paul, understands both the past and the present. Bloor wrestles with the past and present throughout the book -- in form and content; at times, he loses command of past-tense and present-tense forms and the sense of timing and narrative flow falls out of whack. Paul's first-person POV accentuates the reader's perception of the wicked older brother and heartless parents. He is an unreliable narrator, albeit a likable one, because of his limited life experiences, poor vision, and hazy memories. Bloor's character development is rich and steady-handed. The reader can see these people living in Tangerine, Florida, and feel for their situations or marvel at their short-sightedness. Bloor taps the reader's desire to cheer for the underdog -- a desire for fairness and truth -- to keep the pages turning.

[Donalyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made it into my top ten of all time the day I read it and has never left.

It has everything I like in a book- funky setting, offbeat characters, and a great story.

One of those rare books that is loved by almost everyone who reads it.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely, 100% despise this book! In my opinion, both the plot and the characters were poorly developed, making it a boring read.

[Dondee Gocongg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Warning this review has spoiler. So in the part 3 Paul goes and jump at a couch right and the get called to the principal. They got a X-ray right then he get xspelled. Erik goes to jail yeah to jail

[Arturo]

This is the best book ever.

[MK · Rating 1 out of 5]

*spoilers*

I found this to be an extremely manipulative and stupid book. A Pro-Bullying book. A book that tells you how to be a horrible lousy friend, whilst still maintaining an air of self-righteousness. A book with a pretentiously hypocritical main character to lead the way. Sorry not sorry.

Also a book that advocates for blaming people for things they didn’t do. The protagonist keeps insisting on helping people who hate him for no reason, and there’s this obvious implication that he owes them something. Meanwhile he shows contempt for people who are minding their own business, sitting in their houses, being warm, having cocoa, and listening to Christmas music. Paul Fisher is an ass. Sorry not sorry.

Also, fuck sports. Fuck the fact that stupid, boring, ball-obsessed activities that involves being violent a-holes towards other people was shoved down my throat all throughout my childhood, but meanwhile important things like art, writing, reading, or nurturing animals were always scoffed at/or I wasn’t allowed to explore them. Sorry not sorry.

The book is full of all sorts of gaslighting. We’re supposed to believe Joey is a big horrible racist, but Victor literally calls every Asian person he sees “Chinese” (spoiler, the Asians in this book are Filipino, not Chinese), and that’s literally never acknowledged. We’re supposed to believe the “opposing team” is the one that’s violent, when Paul’s Tangerine team is actually the one that got violent first. We’re supposed to believe Tino and Victor “didn’t mean anything against Joey’s brother” by interrupting the memorial for him, but they were the ones who’d been bullying him for no reason earlier. In fact, the whole ending conflict reeked of “Hey Costello family, I’mma let you finish, but Luis Cruz had the most tragic backstory of all time.” It’s gross. The whole book reminded me of “True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”. Fake morality, sports crap, forced reading in schools, toxic little middle school boys—these books are the epitome of the notoriously toxic phrase “boys will be boys”.

Here’s something really important that I think more people need to realize: Two things can be true at once. I know that’s a hard concept for people to grasp (especially someone who used to communicate with me on here), but I’m here to tell you that it IS possible to hold two coexisting thoughts in your head simultaneously, without them being contradictory. They can, in fact, both be true. None of this “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” crap. Instead, you can condemn two people at once. You can condemn both Voldemort and the Dursleys…even though they’d be sworn enemies, no doubt. I’ll get more to this in a minute

Among the lesser problems I had with the book were the boring, mundane details of everyday life (think Twilight), a protagonist that makes Bella Swan look like an intriguing and riveting and dynamic character, and a whole bunch of sports (yuck). And no, it’s not just because of the recent rise of privileged athletes who bash my country. I’ve just always hated sports.

But for me the biggest criticism is that the bullying is ignored or justified in various ways. When it’s not being glossed over and swept under the rug, it either has the disgustingly typical excuses made for it (“it’s just a joke, bruh”, “boys will be boys”), or, the book is emotionally manipulating the reader by blatantly justifying the bullying by having it turn out later that *spoiler* the person getting bullied is supposedly a racist (there’s several inconsistencies with that sudden characterization, but who’s keeping track?). So it’s as if the book is saying, “Well this person turned out to be a bad person themselves anyway, so, it’s OKAY that the bullying happened.” Except, actually—no. Incorrect. I know the popular opinion is that if someone is the victim of racism, that suddenly automatically makes any/all behavior on their part okay, but that’s not true. That’s not how it works. Again—you can be against BOTH things. You can acknowledge that racism is wrong. And, you can also acknowledge that bullying is wrong too. Isn’t that neat? The existence of one doesn’t justify the other. But, this book goes down the classic victim-blaming route of, “If someone bullies you, then YOU need to ‘chill out’—not the bully, the one who’s attacking, antagonizing, and harassing another person. It’s YOU who’s the problem.” It doesn’t surprise me that I’d been made to read this twice in school, since this is the same gaslighting, pro-bullying dogshit dribble our schools peddle out. It goes hand-in-hand with what these abuse institutions—I mean, schools—are constantly pushing. The protagonist also does the narcisisstic bully-apologist crap of, “Well, I was okay with it, why aren’t YOU okay with it?”

I also find it highly suspicious and overly-convenient that Joey only started being racist well over halfway through the book, after VOLUNTARILY switching to a school where he KNEW the majority of kids there were nonwhite, AND not showing any hostility toward them until AFTER they’d started bullying and egging him on. Not to mention, having all of his closest friends at his other school be minorities too. Make of that what you will, but I’m not buying it. It’s just trying to justify the previous nasty behavior of the other characters. I’ve seen this a few other times in fiction: GoT butchering/assassinating Daenerys’ character to try to justify the other characters’ bigotry and the writers’ misogynistic views, as well as the character Ray on that trash 90s show, Beverly Hills. He’d shown no signs of violence or abuse beforehand, was always treated like crap for no real reason, and then suddenly conveniently becomes abusive (even though the other characters have been abusive, but I guess it was always okay because they were rich). Point is, inconsistent, poor, and bad writing/characterization doesn’t really work for me. If someone is actually racist, murderous, or a domestic abuser, they’re probably going to show signs of that beforehand. And, even if someone is like that from the start, that still doesn’t cancel out or absolve you from any wrongdoing that you’ve done. Hear that, Emma Gonzalez?

The irony is also not lost on me that while Paul sat down and cried over not being able to play on the soccer team at his first middle school, this idiot simultaneously spends the rest of the book calling people wimps for not wanting to go to school for their own mental health (an abusive institution that bullies people), and telling everyone else around him to “calm down.” Okay pot. Keep calling all the kettles around you black. Someone getting bullied is a lot more serious than you not being able to play some stupid sport. He also ends the book as a macho dudebro saying, “I’m SuCh A bAd DuDe NoW, hAhA nERds!” The arrogance reached vomit-inducing levels.

The entire conflict is between dog crap and…dog crap. What a choice. Literally Tino and Erik (the main event rivalry in this book) are both the same kind of person.

There are blatantly stupid situations in the book where clear bullying is going on, but for some reason the one getting bullied is the one who is demonized. It’s so stupid and makes my brain hurt. Paul reminds me of a revoltingly vile person I actually trusted and was loyal to for 4 years, who would always pretend to be that “good, moral, kind, caring, upstanding” person who totally stood for justice, but would simultaneously defend people who would bully me, and act like I was the problem—and say things like, “you’re making a big deal out of nothing”—whilst simultaneously being allowed to voice his criticisms and concerns of other people. It was only ever okay when he did it, not when I did. This is subtly narcissistic, gaslighting, demeaning, and abusive (and in the case of my “friend”, a racist, despite pretending with all his might to be the opposite). These people are the fakest of the fake. Paul will freak out if Joey doesn’t want a hall guide on his first day of classes, but it’s totally fine to bully people. It’s fine to hassle, harass, or intimidate someone who isn’t doing anything to you, but God forbid, you decline a tour guide of the school. Because THEN, you’re calling Paul blind, and oh dear. He’ll get gung-ho about that, even though it’s fine for others to call you whatever they want. But it’s oh so horrible to say “you’d have to be blind to get lost around here”, but not what the guys are doing to Joey. Fuck off. There is not a single interesting, root-able, or likeable character in this book, and the plot is nothing but boring sports games. What exactly am I supposed to be getting out of this?

Teresa is a hypocrite too. That dog (yeah, I’m going to call her that, Paul) said Joey couldn’t say anything about her brother, but she’s fine with these animals (yeah, I’ll call them that too—if you are violent and/or a bully, you’re an animal, and go ahead and twist that in any way you’d like) harassing or getting violent with others. Or vandalizing things. Just shut up, Teresa.

More Paul-bashing: Could you have created a more boring protagonist? I’m sorry, but when all you talk about is sports and tangerine-growing, I’m not interested. I probably wouldn’t even be mentioning this if he wasn’t also a bad person, but he is. So I don’t feel bad about calling him boring. The book basically has three components: a play-by-play of every football/soccer game (they’re both the same thing to me), information overload on tangerines and Florida agriculture, and the mc being an asshole. When it’s not mundane, it’s promoting bullying. When it’s not promoting bullying, it’s mundane and boring. Paul definitely high-key reminds me of someone I knew in real life who pretended to care about me, until he decided to demonize me for standing up for myself against a bully—and I used to listen to that pig talk about football, without complaining, and actually being supportive. Don’t you just love going the extra mile for someone only for it to end up being a total waste of time? Never extend an olive (or tangerine) branch to someone.

I also love how the mom was made out to be a total Karen because she actually cared about whether or not her husband and son lived or died. Boy. The standards for Karens have dramatically dropped. I remember when it used to mean wanting to RUIN a person’s life—not caring about it (especially when it’s your own kid).

There was also a silly storyline about Paul feeling oh so guilty about “ratting” the guys out who vandalized part of a carnival. First of all, why is it wrong to hold people accountable for their actions? I know this is the age of dEsTrOyInG sTaTuEs iS coOl, but most normal people know that there’s no excuse for destroying other peoples’ property. Secondly, he was literally defending himself. He’d have taken the fall for something he didn’t do. Why was he supposed to have done that instead?

The “shocking twist” at the end was not shocking or a twist at all. It’s fairly obvious from page 1.

No. Just no.

[Simi Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this before, but I didn't get to finish the whole book. So I decided to reread it from beginning to end. It surely brought me back old memories, but, more importantly, it hit me with a surprise.

One scene in the book stood out to me, how Paul was treated differently in Lake Windsor Middle School because he was in IEP. What's worse was that he couldn't play soccer because the program was holding him back. Also, teachers alike were treating him as someone "special" who needs care. I know he felt in a way because I was in IEP in both middle school and high school, how I've been treated differently and the fact that I couldn't learn stuff that other kids were because it was "too hard for me to understand." I wanted to be treated as a normal kid, not someone special. I guess that's one reason why I loved this book.

But throughout the story, Paul gets to meet new friends and start fresh. And hopefully, he'll begin to be confident in himself which he shows showing how much he's improving. I mean, outside of his home, Paul's never scared. But when Erik, his big brother, comes around, he hides. I'm sure it's because something terrible happened to him, and it involves around Erik. It's too bad that everyone, especially his parents, were so oblivious and paid more attention to Erik and his future but not Paul, which saddens me.

Hopefully, everyone will enjoy this book if they read it. Believe me when I say it.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul is the goalie for his soccer team despite the fact the he is practically blind. His parents hardly notice that he is a gifted soccer player becasue he is completely overshadowed by his older brother, Erik. His father is particularly obsessed by Erik and his chances of getting a football scholarship at a big college. Paul is the only one who notices that Erik is not a nice person, to say the least. The book begins as the family moves to Tangerine, Florida. One of the things that I particularly liked about this book was how I was transported to a place so completely different than the Midwest. The orange groves, the people, the weather--all were alien to me. What really makes this book great, though, is Paul and his experiences at a new school with new friends (and enemies) and a new soccer team. Even if you do not like soccer, you will like this book. It is a great mystery that is funny and dark at the same time. READ IT! Really, you will not be sorry you did.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think the story was funny and sad but cool because Paul played soccer and he thought he was the best goaley in the world. And then Paul moves to a new town call tangerine he meets a new friend Joey and they both play soccer and tangerine middle school. Then a sink hole comes and destroys the school and Paul goes to a new school tangerine middle then he meets new friends and then at the end they Paul's bother and his friend goes to jail for killing pauls friends brother.

[Ricardo Juarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erick can be a men person because he made fun o f mike Costello. Paul thinks that Erik is a mean and cruel person.

[Chris Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Edward Bloor's novel, Tangerine, has too many different plots and themes to have an identity. On one hand it is a soccer story; on another hand it is a story about race and the urban school setting; also it's a story about a boy who can't remember something bad that happened to him long ago. It works best as a soccer story, as the other two stories grow cliche and uninteresting. It's not that this is a bad story. For the first 200 pages it's an engrossing tale, but it's in the last 100 pages that the story begins to go downhill. Way downhill.

Because of his dad's work situation, Paul Fisher and his family have moved to Tangerine Country, Florida, a place where tangerine oranges aren't quite as common as they once were. Despite his thick glasses, Paul sees a lot of things nobody else does. For one, he's touchy about being called legally blind. My first hope was that he was in denial of his physical defect, but as the story goes on it's clear that his eyesight is fine. It's Paul's parents who insist he's legally blind - they're the ones in denial. This sets the tone for the sophistication level of the novel. Rather than feature an unreliable narrator, it features a middle school teenager who knows more than the adults.

Paul knows that his brother, Erik, is a bad person. Everyone else, especially his father, only see a future professional football kicker, and the star of his new high school team. Some of the aspects regarding Erik are quite effective. We get a glimpse at parents who witness, firsthand, some of the atrocities their son carries out, but choose to turn a blind eye as though they don't want to admit that side exists. Paul also knows the real reason why it is the town's expensive koi have been disappearing from the pond. The adults are just too dim to notice it themselves.

What Paul is most interested in, however, is soccer. He tries out for the middle school team, but because his mom labeled him as legally blind he is not eligible to play. However, a large sinkhole destroys more than half of the school, which is made up of portable classrooms, and Paul decides to take the option of transferring to Tangerine Middle School. Tangerine Middle is a tough place. It's an urban district where whites are in the minority, but it's an opportunity for Paul to begin his soccer hobby anew. He tries out for the largely Hispanic soccer team, sans the legally blind tag, and makes it as a reserve goaltender.


What I like about the soccer elements is that they are nice and easygoing. The focus isn't on glory and victory (though the team is very good), and Bloor seems to be making the point that the importance of sport is not to win, but to improve one's self and create positive relations with others. Though Paul is technically the back-up goalie, which inevitably means he'll get his big chance at the end, for the most part he plays offensive positions, and it turns out he's not a bad soccer player. He solidifies his position on the team when, after taking over for the team's best player, he scores a goal. That player, Victor, slaps him a high-five and all tensions regarding Paul's higher-class status disappear.

The novel's attempts to develop the relations between Paul and his teammates off the field, however, fall flat. This is largely because the Hispanic characters are one-dimensional and the off-the-field meetings are too forced. Paul becomes closest with Tino, and we learn that Tino's older brother, Luis, is busy inventing a new type of tangerine. Paul spends time at Tino's hut and learns about tangerine trees, and in one crucial moment even helps protect the young trees during a freeze. Learning about the tangerine trees served as the novel's dullest moments, particularly during the freeze. Don't get me wrong, I love gardening, but the sections with the tangerine trees do nothing to move the story forward or provide any memorable information about the trees. The reader just learns what a chore it is to do the job - and to read about it.

The story involves a lot of freak environmental occurrences, such as the sinkhole. Lightning suddenly strikes a kid on the football field, and the suburbs are plagued with the smell of an ever-burning muck fire. These environmental issues seem to serve as a warning - no matter how much money you have you can't escape mother nature. The upper-class families that live in the suburbs attempt to fix the problems with money, to no avail. Some of the problems, in fact, occur because of greed and vanity. What other reason are football practices held during the most lightning-prone time of the day? The football team wants victory at all costs. Even in the sinkhole we learn about gross negligence that could have prevented damage to the school property. As nice as these themes are, they do little to prevent the novel from delving into strange territory for the novel's final act.

The soccer season serves as the story's anchor. Soccer season is the one constant surrounded by many of the events described above. So once page 200 hits and soccer season is over, the novel loses its anchor and drifts into bad seas. Characters begin behaving in bizarre ways. Late in the novel, Paul makes horrible decisions for the sake of his Hispanic friends and, strangely, the novel seems to condone what he does. Characters undergo convenient changes as though suddenly realizing the error of their ways. Characters also become one-dimensional, or at least they are more noticeably one-dimensional. The tragedy is that the novel was rather good for a long while. It's a shame Bloor wasn't able to stay true to his characters and his story. The novel ends up doing too much, when it would have benefited from further developing a single story line.

[Josiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This just might be the greatest debut novel since Brian Jacques had "Redwall" published in the mid-1980s, and I do not say that without much pause.
The pulse-pounding ebb and flow of Edward Bloor's fantastic story grabbed me by the throat from the very first pages and never relinquished its grip through harrowing twist after harrowing twist. Action and adventure of a rarely seen superiority flood over and under and within the text all the way through, transforming the perception of the reader and plunging him or her directly into the cataclysms of the protagonist Paul Fisher and those who are in his life.
Tangerine moves along with brilliant pace and breathtaking speed, never predictable, never anything but extraordinary, never not frightening and mysterious and keenly provocative of every emotion in the spectrum of the human experience.
Edward Bloor also writes tangibly and thoughtfully about human feeling through the eyes and life of a seventh grader, and does so with remarkable depth of perception. There is enough A-1 material in the pages of Tangerine to form three or four high-quality books, but he has blended these glowing pieces into a single rich, vibrant, stirring novel that will not ever be forgotten by anyone who turns its pages, I am sure.
Also, who ever thought that a writer could make soccer seem truly suspenseful and interesting to an American who doesn't take an interest in the game? This was certainly the case for me in relation to this book.
I give Tangerine my proud, enthusiastic recommendation, and I now view Edward Bloor as one of a limited number of juvenile novelists to really watch for closely in the future.