Orange Is the New Black

"I Cant Believe I Am Going To Say This I Liked The Show Better"

"Story in a nutshell - spoiled white girl chooses to break the law, is indicted, found guilty and sentenced to spend time in prison. Instead of taking responsibility for her actions, she spends a large amount of time blaming her co-defendants for her behavior and naming her in the indictment. While in prison, she continues to break the rules and once again justifies it by saying things aren't fair for her. She continues to describe how special and unique she is because she has blond hair, blue eyes and is from an upper middle class family. I mean how dare the prison system place her in an awful minimum security prison with all of those poor, uneducated women of color. She ran around the track a lot, received a lot of books from the outside and solved the problems of all of the inmates. Essentially, she was the great white hope for all inmates and Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury.<br/><br/>To say this was condescending to both staff and other inmates is an understatement. Contrary to popular belief, men and women of every race, socioeconomic status and level of education are convicted of crimes - white inmates do receive much less time in prison, but it's like Ragu, they're in there. Every job has really crappy people, average people and great people. Apparently the average and great people never showed up for work in the 15 months she was there. Oh..there was the one supervisor that allowed extra privileges...that person she understatement! She was and continues to be an entitled spoil woman who believes she is special and should not have gone to prison. The one glimmer of insight I saw was her realization that race and socioeconomic status influences the length of sentence.<br/><br/>Truth - prison is not fun, it is not designed to be fun. There will be no steak, no mints in pillows, no 300 count sheets and no individual TVs for inmates. If these things are deal breakers for you, don't break the law! <br/><br/>Bottom line, although I am certain she will never commit a crime of this magnitude, I believe she will always view herself as the victim."

"The book is so good! "

"An alright read, but a bit dry. Book does a great job portraying the tedium and monotony of incarceration, but at the expense of moving the plot forward. Very little overlap with the Netflix dramatization. Overall, glad that I read it but would not re-read."

"I thought this book was a very enlightening read. When one reads this book they have to keep in mind that this a memoir, not a sociology essay. I give kudos to Piper Kerman for giving us an image of her private life, all well educating us about the truths she witnessed while in the prison system. I began reading this book because I have thoroughly enjoyed the Netflix show. I had honestly expected this book to be like the show, but I was wrong in that assumption. The show is dramatic and entertaining, but this book is enlightening, genuine, and honest. <br/><br/>Piper Kerman is a white, middle class, "nice blonde lady." that wound up in the prison system for a crime that occurred many years prior to her sentencing. Her crime was money laundering which is a non-violent drug offence and thus she was given a small sentence (13 to 15 months) in a minimum-security facility. In this memoir, she recounted all the good times, and bad times that she experienced during year stay in prison. I got a very genuine feeling that Piper truly learned how her crime affected many different people including herself, the women she was in prison with, and her loved ones on the outside. Before prison it seemed as Piper was completely unaware of how much her family and friends loved her, her privileges as white, middle class American and she is now taking her experience and trying to make a difference. <br/><br/>With myself being a white middle-class American women who has never been to prison, I found this book to be absolutely eye opening. Prison is not what the media portrays it to be and feel as though I had been duped by that portrayal. After reading, this memoir I feel like I have an obligation to research the prison system further and do what I can to help women in this situation. If I learned one from this book, it is that prison is awful and the women in them deserve a voice."

"Great read! Interesting info about prison life."

"Kinda boring "

"Story was interesting. Gritty look into womens’ prison. "

"At first it's kind of interesting and then it's just really freaking boring. Small unimportant daily events that happen in one woman's life. I solely wanted to read it so I could watch the show but now I'm not sure I want to watch the show this book was such a drag. Basically a typical white person takes something millions of minorites experience daily are actually afraid of but must do to survive and turns it into a fun adventurous time in her life makes it almost sounds dreamy then goes to prison once again something tons of minorites experience but she figured out a way to cash in on it but had any one of the other ppl in this book turned around and wrote a book it wouldn't have gained at traction but bc she is white and privileged, here's a book deal and a netflix show ✍️"

"This memoir really opened my eyes about the prison system, she's able to get people to understand different social and systemic problems. The tv series is actually a distraction from the point of the memoir. "