Orange City Review

Orange City
By Lee Matthew Goldberg

Is it weird to love a dystopian novel? 

Then call me weird, because I love Orange City.

The first book in a series has challenges. The writer has to build the new world and introduce key characters. A first book has to tell a complete story while building opportunities to tell more stories. The reader has to be satisfied, yet wanting more.

Add to that the challenges for a dystopian novel. The new world includes an oppressive rule over a community who feel trapped in a horrific society with little opportunity to escape the evils that are regularly happening. The story is told with a protagonist’s experience as a cog in a society that may be showing its cracks.

Living in Orange City is a choice, but it’s a desperate one. Characters faced with a financial crisis, criminal history, or other debilitating personal problems commit the rest of their lives to working in Orange City under the maniacal whims of The Man. Is Orange City really the lesser evil?

When Graham Weatherend goes to Orange City, he gets addicted to a new soda brand he is assigned for an advertising campaign. While the reader quickly sees how the addiction is playing out, so many questions arise. Why was he the one singled out for this campaign? Why is this product significant? Who are all of these people he encounters and why are they acting the way that they do?

Orange City checks all of the right boxes. It asks some basic questions to draw the reader into the world and takes the reader on a wild ride as those questions are answered – and new questions pop up. Desperate characters make desperate choices that make the reader speculate on how they would handle a situation. It makes the reader think and quickly hooks them into wanting to know more about existence in Orange City.

Happiness is enjoying the first book in a new series. Frustration is waiting for book two. I’m happy, and I’m frustrated. When is Lemonworld coming out? Hurry up.