Tangerine Analysis

Let's get the easy one out of the way, first: the action place in the recent past, probably in the 1990s. Even though it's never actually specified in the book, you can figure out the date by the l...

The book is set up like a journal, with dates instead of chapter titles. And at the end, Paul hints that Tangerine is his journal. When he reads through it to organize his thoughts so that he can w...

Young Adult LiteratureLet's start with the obvious. Tangerine is a book about a seventh grader, written for an audience of middle schoolers. But it's also Young Adult Lit because it addresses issue...

The Suspense is Killing UsTangerine is definitely full of suspense. We know something bad happened in Paul's past, but we don't know what—and neither does he. As he explains, "The whole truth isâ...

Middle School Angst, Tangerine-styleTake a wild guess how many chapters Tangerine has. How many would you say—20? 30? Nope. There are 56! 56 chapters in a 300-page book. Even Harry Potter and the...

Tangerine is an all-around awesome title for this book. It's actually got a triple meaning—that's three times the tangerine-y goodness!It refers to the name of the county the Fishers move to in F...

Successful hills are here to stay.Everything must be this way.The Doors, "The Soft Parade"We've got two lines from "The Soft Parade" by the Doors, a really famous band from the 60s and 70s. The res...

The last journal entry in Tangerine is one page long. In it, Paul describes his first morning drive to his new school, St. Anthony's.Almost everything about this trip is symbolic. As Paul and his d...

Tangerine is written as if it were a middle school student's journal. It's chock-full of dialogue and sports action, so the language is not too tricky. The symbolism and themes in the novel, howeve...

The New Kids on the Block. No, the Other Ones.Paul and his family move from Texas to Florida, and have to adjust to a new neighborhood, new schools, and new friends. We learn all about the weird we...

We learn that there is something awful in Paul's past that he can't quite remember, but that has scarred him, physically and emotionally, for life. It seems to have something to do with Erik, his b...

Tangerine actually breaks down perfectly into three acts, since it's written in three parts. What a coincidence! Part 1 tells the story of Paul's family's move to Florida, with all the angst and pr...

On April 1st, 2009, Edward Bloor played an awesome trick on his fans, posting on his blog that he was writing a sequel to Tangerine. It was supposed to be entitled Blood Orange, and in it, Erik was...

There really isn't even much in the way of romance in Tangerine, let alone anything steamy. Paul and Kerri have a mild crush on each other, but never get to hang out, and the one time she asks him...

Exodus ("'Look at that now,' he said. 'Y'all are having a regular nine plagues of Egypt over here, aren't you?' 'Yeah,' I said. 'Nine and counting.'") (2.6.25)Julius Caesar ("Victor grabbed Cesar f...