St. Andrew's JC student's book review - Tangerine

Contributed by Sudeshna Dutt, St. Andrew's Junior College

This book is written from the perspective of a young Singaporean photojournalist by the name of Nick. He goes to Vietnam for a reunion with his friends but ends up travelling solo for a week before joining his buddies. During this week, he meets many other travellers and locals who cause him to rediscover himself and to ponder issues such as friendships and loneliness.



The main theme of this book revolves around loneliness and reconnecting with other people. The title of the book was derived from Nick’s gesture of offering a tangerine to the Vietnamese people. Readers learn many lessons on empathy and relationships with others.

A certain paragraph stated:

“They were all old friends from college, student councilors who had shared a year so intense they thought it would bind them forever. But they had been only seventeen then and they sat together that night at twenty-eight, bound by a common thread so thin it was getting hard to see why they were still invited to each other's weddings. No one was unfriendly, no eye or heart was cold, but the distance was showing.”

This indicated that relationships between humans were something delicate and easily affected. You may be close to a person at one point in time and years later, barely know them.

The story being rather poignant is a good read for all youngsters. Readers will tend to reflect on what they have and the relationships they share with other people.