Save Me an Orange
Save Me an Orange
By: Hayley Grace
[Fulfilled ‘A book of poetry or a novella’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
I have a mixed relationship with poetry just like I have a mixed relationship with art. What makes good poetry? Bad poetry? Good art? Bad art? So much of it is subjective and dependent on what speaks to or engages the reader/viewer.
I have not read much poetry so I’m not writing this from any position of ‘I know everything (or anything) about poetry’. I don’t have a lot to compare this book to and I don’t have strong opinions about any of this— at least at the time of this writing.
Maybe once I’ve explored more poetry my thoughts about this book will change for the worse or for the better. Only time will tell.
This book sent me on a fun rabbit trail of pondering poetry and asking others some of these questions. It wasn’t necessarily the content of this book that was thought-provoking for me, but to think about the concept of poetry and how one should/could write it.
My first thought when I read this book was— ‘What makes this poetry?’
Some of the poems had more of a rhythm or a repetition to it that fits what I think of poetry. But a lot of the poems felt like a series of statements with random line breaks. I picture a cat walking across a keyboard creating the poem structure.
Was the lack of capitalization and punctuation what made it poetry?
Was the depth of emotion expressed what made it poetry?
I don’t know. I don’t know what makes something poetry or what makes it good. Feel free to share with me what your opinions about any of this are. I don’t think there’s just ‘one right answer’ to this so I’m curious what other people think.
Now to talk about this actual book— Save Me an Orange. This was a book recommended to me by a librarian when I asked for a short book of poetry.
Hayley Grace got TikTok famous when she started reading her poetry online. Save Me an Orange is her debut book published in 2024.
It’s divided in three parts: the roots, the spoiled fruit, and oranges.
The roots are a series of poems (I think it’s a bunch of different ones?) that describe her broken relationship with her parents and her parents’ broken relationship. The roots are the foundation of her own journey to/through broken love, what informed what she thought love looked like.
———-
“i think i was forced to grow up fast
because my parents could not”
———
“the boy you meet when you’re 16
is supposed to be your first heartbreak
not your father”
_______
“i mean my father was a handyman
but he spent most of his time
making the outside of our house
perfect.
to ensure that no one would question
what went on inside of it.”
————
“i am the product of my parents
their dna is infiltrated throughout my body
my mother’s heart
my father’s eyes
my mother’s sadness
my father’s rage
their qualities rooted inside of me
even as i grow up
my feet are cemented to the ground
i can’t escape
i can’t escape this
i can’t escape them”
The spoiled fruit is her experience in a bad relationship with a ‘rotten orange.’ Someone kind of like her dad. It depicts the pain of that and the depression it caused.
“to love you
was to hand you a gun
and have you aim it
at my heart
and pray
you never pull the trigger”
Oranges are seeing the things in life worth living for. Not allowing one rotten orange to spoil the whole tree. It’s the sunrise after a dark night.
“you were put on this earth to live
it’s not too late
to start now”
________
“but now i know
because there was a life after you
and it was beautiful
and sweet
and sometimes scary
but i don’t have to wear rose colored glasses
to see life in color anymore”
_________
“but if i have learned one thing
it is that the only thing
that can always come back
is love
love leaves
but always returns
sometimes in the form of a person
or a song
maybe a book
or even a hobby
love always comes back”
—————-
Since poetry has a lot to do with what emotions it evokes, I asked myself: What did this book make me feel?
It made me feel sad that her parents destroyed her security and her ability to recognize real love. The divorce rate in America is around 40-50% and is one of my least favorite things about Western culture— a pretty flippant attitude toward divorce.
How many kids who went through their parents’ divorce came out unscathed? You could probably count it on one hand. It wrecks them. And their concept of love, stability, trust.
So if divorce is so common and so destructive, why don’t we hold marriage in higher regard? Why don’t we treat sex with more respect and sturdier boundaries? Why don’t we enter into a marriage covenant with more reverence? With more care and wisdom and commitment? It’s not just a thing to do because a wedding is pretty or because we get a tax break.
Marriage was created by God as a representation of God and the church. A relationship that should be characterized by love and grace and faithfulness.
It matters.
You know how much it matters because you don’t have to go far to find books like Hayley’s that are wrought with the bullets of divorce. Divorce tears apart God’s design for human flourishing. You can’t read poetry like Hayley’s and come away with any other realization.
That’s not to say every single divorce is categorically wrong. Because a lot of divorces stem from abuse or repeated infidelity. But the tragedy of the divorce remains because it is still a tainting of what marriage was created to be.
In a culture that worships self and sex, it’s not a surprise that so many marriages end this way, but maybe books like Hayley’s can change people’s posture toward sex and marriage.
What a gift we could give our children— to give them a whole family built on faithfulness and steadfast love, a love that stays even when it’s hard, a love that began with a commitment that goes beyond feelings and self.
It resonated with me when she said
“your appearance will always be
the least interesting thing about you”
and I think more should be written about what beauty is and should be. Our appearance isn’t inconsequential, but I like that she recognizes that there should be more interesting things about you than the way you look.
The poem where she asks her boyfriend to talk to her, to SEE her, ‘with her clothes on’ is telling of our culture. So much emphasis is put on women empowerment and body exposure and the focus is on the body, the clothes, even the nakedness, that we think that’s what makes us interesting, worthy of spending time with. But it all boils down to lust and selfishness.
When our appearance and the acts of the flesh are what become ultimate we diminish what really makes us who we are. What makes us lovely. When we reduce women to their bodies (no matter who is ‘in control’) we ask others to reduce us to our bodies.
You can’t build a relationship that revolves around the removal of clothes.
It made me feel hopeful.
She doesn’t leave the reader in the depths of her despair and the brokenness of life but pushes them to see life on the other side. She encourages readers that there is more to life than the one relationship that consumed us at the age of 16 and didn’t work out.
There are people who need us, who rely on us, who love us. There are so many reasons to choose life and joy.
That’s the idea behind ‘save me an orange’— save her an orange because she’s going to be around to eat it.
I’m glad there was this redemption to the book when it easily could have just been about brokenness.
To be honest, most of the material of this book was not relatable to me. I didn’t endure a divorce; my relationship with my parents has always been good; I have never had my heart broken; I have never experienced abuse; I have never experienced deep depression or suicidal thoughts.
Those are all very intense things and I’m sure there are a lot of readers who will probably read her words and see their own feelings displayed on the page. That wasn’t the case for me. So this isn’t a book that’s going to sit with me a long time like it might for others.
I’m not sure the style or writing was my favorite either.
It sounds like her second book was largely about heartbreak so I doubt I will read that one.
Recommendation
I am not sure how to recommend this book because I don’t know what people look for when they want to read poetry.
Is it more about structure and creativity and profundity? If so, this probably isn’t the book for you.
Is it more about expressing deep or hard to talk about feelings that relate and resonate? This would probably be a good option for you if you’ve experienced any of the similar things she has.
I have not read a lot of poetry so I can’t even compare this to something else to say- if you like that, you’ll like this. I honestly have no idea if you’ll like this. Some reviewers liken it to Rupi Kaur’s poetry— which I’ve never read and can neither confirm nor deny if it’s like that.
My lower rating for this book is not because I necessarily think it’s terrible, but because if someone was going to ask me for a recommendation for a book of poetry, I doubt this would be the one at the top of my not-yet-existent list. There wasn’t really anything that made me think— ‘people HAVE to read this!’ and though I haven’t fully grasped my opinion about poetry, I think what I recommend should stir more excitement in me about what I’m reading.
While this isn’t poetry that really stuck with me or spoke to me, at the very least it inspired me a little bit to explore poetry and go back to even writing some poetry myself.
[Content Advisory: 2 f-words; some sexual content; implied abuse]
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