My Thoughts

‘Tangier covered you—smothered you, according to some, though I found only comfort in it, pride even. Tangier had left its mark on me, claimed me as one of its own.’

‘Tangerine’ is an intriguing little book and one I have mixed feelings about. This is the story of the friendship between two women - Lucy and Alice were roommates and friends at College until tragedy struck and the ensuing falling out. A few years later, Lucy turns up unannounced at Tangiers, where Alice is living with her husband. The story then moves back and forth in alternating chapters told from the viewpoints of both women as tensions build and ultimately, things go awry.

The first part of the book is very slow - a lot of detail and whilst I enjoyed some of the descriptions of Tangiers (at times it was overwritten), you found yourself wishing the plot would move along faster. At about the halfway point, the story really starts to get going with the disappearance of Alice’s husband and then events move very fast. Unfortunately however, the plot seemed somewhat predictable with many reviewers aligning it with Patricia Highsmith’s ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ of which I tend to agree. Yet the story did hold my interest to the end, with just the pacing of events and cumbersome descriptions being its downfall. Also, the voices of Lucy and Alice are very similar to each other and, never really liking either character as both could be described as high maintenance (but in different ways) it became, at times, confusing and I had to read back as both Alice and Lucy were so alike in their voice. A lot of narrative with not a great deal happening all up.

‘Now was the time to rectify it, I knew. The final chance to make things right. To leave the past in the past. If it meant making Morocco my own, I was prepared to do just that. I was a Tangerine now, after all.’


This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release

MEMO

TO: KATE

FROM: PEOPLE WHO KNOW ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS

RE: HOW TO PROPERLY ENJOY A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

01. Stop trying to unpick the plot or spot the clues from page one.

02. Quit rolling your eyes when sentences begin with “And suddenly…” or “For one wild moment…” or “And then I stumbled. A rock I had not seen…”. Sometimes things do happen suddenly. Sometimes moments are wild. Sometimes rocks jump out at you.

03. There’s no such thing as too many unreliable narrators.

04. You don’t get cranky when contemporary lit novels follow familiar narrative arcs so why, for goodness sakes, do re-interpretations of The Talented Mr Ripley or Single White Female irritate you so much?

05. A good location really jazzes things up – go with it.

2/5 You’ve probably guessed how I felt about Christine Mangan’s Tangerine?

I received my copy of Tangerine from the publisher, Hachette Australia, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks Hachette Australia and netgalley for this ARC.

Wow, this is the coolest weird psyo book I've read. You'll be confused for a minute but its all worth it at the end.