Book of the Year!

I did this thing last year where I named 2012's 'Book of the Year' so here is 2013's edition.
The criteria that I consider is that I have to have read it that year (duh.), it has to be a book I've never read before, it has to top all books I've read that year new and old, and finally I have to feel like this book can be universally liked and enjoyed by relatively anyone.  Of course you can disagree with any or all of this.  It's a personal thing, like all my book reviews, and of course up to interpretation.

So 2013's Book of the Year is:
Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman


Of course you've probably, if not watch for yourself, heard of the new Netflix series that came out this summer Orange is the New Black about a sweet little white woman who goes to jail for carrying drug money ten years ago.  Well this is the memoir that the show was based off of (if you look at a lot of red carpet events for the show you'll actually see Piper Kerman is in a lot of them with her real life husband Larry, who's also in the show).  I myself have seen the first season of the show and loved it!  So I did some digging and me being the book nerd that I am decided to read the book!
The charter on the show is based off the memoir's author Piper Kerman.  The book explores the act and relationship that lead to her incarceration.  She then goes into detail of her 15 plus months at a woman's prison and then her trial and time done in Chicago leading up to her release.

I give Orange is the New Black a 9 out of 10

I know it's strange to give the Book of the Year a less than perfect score but hey, my blog my rules.

Kerman has a wonderfully blunt and beautiful voice to her writing.  She spares no detail of her  very graphic experience.  Where the show dramatizes and changes quite a bit, Kerman's writing is incredibly human.  At some points it may drag slightly but it's only because you are brought along on every detail of her experience which makes the end incredibly painful as she spends her time in Chicago but insanely liberating as she describes being set free.
It's hard to rate a memoir and many have their reservations about them at times but this is definitely worth the read.  Whether you liked the show or not Kerman's memoir is beautiful and haunting and leaves you with a great message about our prison systems and what justice really means.

Taylor Schilling (who plays Piper Chapman on the Netflix series
with Piper Kerman the author of the memoir