The Orange Houses
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3.7 • 11 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
AN ALA PICK FOR YOUNG ADULTS • Join Tamika, Fatima, and Jimmi as they navigate their struggles, defy societal expectations, and form an unlikely bond that transcends their differences.
“[Readers] will . . . be floored by some of the turns in this swift, tense, and powerful book.”—Booklist, starred review
“Griffin’s prose is gorgeous and resonant, and he packs the slim novel with defeats, triumphs, rare moments of beauty and a cast of credible, skillfully drawn characters.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Three unusual strangers. Three very different stories.
Fifteen-year-old Mik Sykes can’t hear much, and she likes it that way. She can shut out the sellers and buyers, screamers and liars outside the housing project where she lives with her mother. She prefers to live inside her own head. Until two people change her world: Jimmi Sixes, a struggling street poet who is already a war veteran at only eighteen, and Fatima, a sixteen-year-old refugee who has just arrived in New York, all alone. These three unique outsiders form an unexpected and significant friendship, but they also set off an explosive chain of events that will alter the course of each of their lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This hard-hitting and lyrical novel opens with the apparent hanging of Jimmi Sixes, a disturbed 18-year-old veteran and street poet/junkie, back in the Bronx after his discharge from the army; the story then retraces the preceding month's events. Stubborn 15-year-old Tamika (aka Mik), who lives in the projects called the Orange Houses, is hearing-impaired but often prefers to turn off her hearing aids and text message rather than speak. Jimmi introduces her to Fatima, an illegal refugee who has just arrived from Africa ("Her pinky and ring finger were gone. If she held up the hand, say to block a machete blade, the angle of the slash through her palm would match that of the slash crossing her cheek"), and a friendship blossoms. Fatima and Jimmi try to protect Mik from a box-cutter-wielding girl and her posse, but Jimmi ends up caught by a vigilante group. Griffin's (Ten Mile River) prose is gorgeous and resonant, and he packs the slim novel with defeats, triumphs, rare moments of beauty and a cast of credible, skillfully drawn characters. A moving story of friendship and hope under harsh conditions. Ages 14 up.
