Book Reviews: Love is Orange by F.C. Neil

Happy December, readers and writers! It is now officially time for you to put up your Christmas—or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Yule, Saturnalia, or other winter holiday—decorations without drawing ire and nasty looks from your neighbors. It’s also just thirty-one days until we enter 2020. What better way to celebrate the first day of the last month of the year than with a new book review? Today, I am reviewing Love is Orange: Stoking the Fire by F.C. Neil.

Jonathan Harris has spent his summer break trying to get over a really bad breakup. In an attempt to stave off his depression, he heads to one of his and his ex’s favorite spots: the beach. A Nicholas Sparks book in one hand and James Taylor filling his ears, Jonathan only expects to take a walk down memory lane. Then he meets HER. A mysterious teenaged girl with her own Nicholas Sparks novel and James Taylor as her music of choice. It’s love at first sight—until Jonathan says exactly the wrong thing and ruins their moment of basking in orange. Now he would do anything for another chance, a chance he might just get when school starts again.

Melissa Berry is not your average high school senior. She is literary and highly moral, her father died of alcoholism, and this will be her first year attending a real high school. Previously crippled by her social anxiety, Melissa is finally ready to leave homeschool and be a normal teenager. Anything to get away from her mother’s indecent and drunk boy-toy. On the first day of school, she is met with the most unexpected surprise: Jonathan, the boy from the beach she had connected with over the summer before his unfortunate verbal fumble killed the mood. Could this be fate giving them a second chance at love? Or is it just an incredible coincidence?  And if lightning really can strike twice, what happens in the aftermath?

Love is Orange is not your average book. (I’m not just saying that because it managed to mention Redding, a city only fifteen minutes away from where I live that is almost never even named in passing in most books that take place in California.) At only 49 pages long in the Kindle version, it packs a lot of punch in a short amount of space. This is, in part, due to the method of writing that Neil has used, a mix of show and tell that relies heavy on tell with well-placed moments of captivating and vivid imagery, reminiscent of old-fashioned oral storytelling put to paper. The story begins with an enticing newspaper clipping followed by a unique and expertly crafted image of Jonathan and Melissa’s first meeting, exploring emotion through color as it takes over their world and then quickly recedes. From there, it’s a quick read—maybe one sitting—through the emotional rollercoaster of the main characters realizing their love for each other and the consequences it brings for them at school and at home. It all culminates in a surprise ending that one would never expect and the promise of more to come.

I must confess, I am usually very good at predicting plot twists in both books and movies. Sometimes my mom, who is also great at predicting plot twists, and I will share theories while we’re watching movies just to see which one of us will end up being right. However, I did not expect the ending to this book at all. I won’t say too much to avoid possible spoilers, but Neil did a great job of turning the story they were writing into an entirely new premise that promises to make the sequel as unique and exciting as the first. Neil even manages to genre-bend the work a bit, setting it up to be purely romance and then seamlessly transitioning into a hybrid of romance and the supernatural that you will not expect and yet will leave you pining for more.

Of course, this book isn’t for everyone. While it does genre-bend by the end, this story is most certainly in the romance genre. There are multiple romance clichés, including a bit of over-the-top declarations of love, and soap opera-like coincidences. Still, for those that don’t like steamy romance works, there’s not too much to worry about here. Sex is mentioned, sometimes as a mere hormonal act and other times as an act of passionate love, but never in much detail. There is some drunkenness, depression, tragic loss, and one passing mention of contemplating suicide, but it’s all handled in little enough detail that it should not offend most people. However, if you are triggered by such subjects or wish to avoid them, you might want to pass on this work just in case.

I personally would have preferred a little more exploration of the characters and their relationship before the twist ending came. This lacking is, in part, due to the storytelling writing style used here, so it might just be based on personal preferences there. Nevertheless, more exploration of the characters both in and out of their relationship would have made the read much more satisfying, allowing the reader to fully connect with the characters and all their emotional strife. Unfortunately, due to the heavy reliance on telling in this work, there is a lot of emotion present but without the more extended journey into the characters’ lives and minds, the reader will not feel the emotions as strongly as they could. If this could be fixed, this work would be incredibly powerful from an emotional perspective.

Overall, Love is Orange: Stoking the Fire by F.C. Neil is a fun and quick read for romance fans. If you want a drawn-out emotional journey, this book is probably not for you. However, if you want an emotional rollercoaster with an unusual ending that you can finish in one sitting, you’ll definitely want to snag a copy. With the promise of another—and possibly even more unique—book to come after this one, you’ll be dying to find out what happens next in the increasingly bizarre and ever-connected lives of Jonathan Harris and Melissa Berry.

You can buy or borrow a Kindle edition of Love is Orange: Stoking the Fire by F.C. Neil on Amazon. To keep up with more works from MaxEQ and await word on the next installment of Love is Orange, be sure to sign up for the MaxEQ mailing list here.