A review by nothingforpomegranted
The Orchard by David Hopen

challenging dark funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

I’ve had this one on my list for a long time because how could I not read a book with Modern Orthodox representation that hit the popular sphere? Overall, I thought the writing was beautiful and the pacing was strong. I was immersed in the characters and the story, and I understood them deeply. There were a few moments at which I felt the manuscript could have used another pass from an editor because there were references to scenes that may have been left on the cutting room floor (I don’t think we ever explicitly learned that Evan laced Ari’s drink with Xanax, nor did we ever see Ari break Shabbat, but both of those things were referenced as throwaways later in the book. This could be an effective unreliable narration strategy, but instead it just felt unfinished).

I also thought that the plot just went off a cliff at the end. Evan convinced his friends to join him on a so-called apology trip that actually was yet another of his experiments to see the face of God by lacing cupcakes with acid. We see them through their trip, which is bizarre and psychedelic and just too much for me, and then the final scenes are rushed: the next morning, they find Oliver blinded and Noah’s body. Perhaps the rush through the funeral and the end of the year reflects the overwhelmed, post-trauma reactions of the high schoolers processing this experience, but yet again, this just read as incomplete or even lazy writing by the author. We hardly got a glimpse at Rebecca, Noah’s girlfriend, and despite another dramatic moment of Evan launching himself into the fire, there was no real sense of closure. Hope could get away with it because Ari’s narration is so myopic to begin with, but I think the final third of the novel was just underdeveloped.

I also didn’t love the philosophizing debates with Rabbi Bloom. First of all, they were simply not interesting to me, and I skimmed most of those sections s. Second of all, I just didn’t believe that this is how a group of relatively delinquent, though bright, high schoolers would be engaging with texts, as an educator and as someone who has read and engaged with a fair share of the philosophical canon. Those scenes read as pretentious to a fault, and they took away from my enjoyment of the book, especially as they continued to make the same mistakes over and over again. Nonetheless, I can’t deny that the story totally pulled me in and had me staying up late two nights in a row to follow what would happen to these kids.