Orange is the New Black

In my ongoing effort to avoid finishing "The Empty Glass" I started watching the new Netflix show "Orange is the New Black" during a particularly tedious chapter and fell in love. I actually read Piper Kerman's book a while back, but I dusted off my e-reader to re-read it.

If you've watched the Netflix show and are expecting something similar from the book don't. The show is shocking, with nudity, graphic sex etc. It exploits the stereotype of a gritty women's prison and seems to play on the fantasy of what goes on in a prison. On the show Piper's relationship with her fiance Larry is complicated and complex. Obviously the writers of the show need to have drama and need to expand on the plot. A true retelling of Piper's book would be quite boring and with Netflix trying to break into original content they need something that will get people talking (and "Orange is the New Black" is so polarizing they seem to have succeeded).

The show makes prison seem gritty and challenging with vague touches of humanity. The book accomplishes none of these things. The Piper of the book is much more lovable than the one on the show (and less spoiled), yet her prison experience sounds like summer camp. The graphic grittiness of the show is not at all in evidence throughout the book. In fact, Piper's prison experience sounds like my experiences in a college dorm (only with uglier outfits). 

Is the book good? Yes, it is. Piper dispels many of the myths behind prison life and gives a face to the "hardened" criminals held there. She uncovers the humanity and the complex social hierarchy that occurs in prison. The show is more stereotypical, but the drama is amazing. The book is almost, dare I say, boring. Prison doesn't seem that it would be that difficult (not that I have plans to find out). Before watching the show I would have said the book was 4/5, but after seeing the show I'm dropping that to a 3/5. It's a good book, yet, the drama is not there and it reads like a young girls memoir of the weirdest summer camp ever.

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