The Gilmore Guide to Books

Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reviews
    • Reviews by Author
    • Reviews by Title
    • Reviews by Genre
  • Podcast
  • Policies
    • Review Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy

Tangerine by Christine Mangan

July 18, 2018

Tangerine by Christine Mangan
Published by Ecco
Publication date: March 27, 2018
Genres: Debut, Fiction, Suspense
two-half-stars

tangerine

 

If you run into trouble at home, do not be surprised to run into trouble here. You are still the same person. Tangier can be magic, but even she is not a miracle worker.

Heiress Alice Shipley has found herself, at age 20, married and living in Tangier. It’s 1956 and not a place she ever thought she would go, but her new husband John was enamored, so while he goes out to work and explore the city day and night, she stays in their small flat. Until her closest friend from college, Lucy, shows up unannounced and life is once again more exciting. Christine Mangan explores the thrill and peril of foreign places and obsessive relationships in her debut, Tangerine.

As I was reading I felt as if I was in a Hitchcock movie, which is a good sign. Although there is very little overt violence in the novel, Mangan maintains a level of creepiness and unease throughout. At the same time, the similarities between Tangerine and the movies The Talented Mr. Ripley and Gaslight were too obvious for my taste. The plot felt recognizable to me, lessening the suspense Mangan was working so hard to create.

At its heart Tangerine is exactly what it sets out to be—a psychological thriller. It’s not the best I’ve ever read or the worst. Mangan gets top marks for conveying Alice’s unease and the conflicting views of Tangier as both an exciting foreign environment and unnerving for the same reason. It all depends on how you look at the world. The novel kept me tearing through the pages to the end, but I found the resolution to be unsatisfying, with credibility gaps that even the times couldn’t explain away. A safe bet for afternoon reading by the pool, but not a novel that wowed me.

 

two-half-stars

Related Posts

  • Related Posts
  • Same Genre
  • 2.5 Star Books
  • By Christine Mangan
rooms
Rooms: A Novel
sun down motel
The Sun Down Motel
The Art Forger
The Art Forger
sacrament
The Sacrament: A Novel
cartwheel
Cartwheel
signature of all things
The Signature of All Things
Be Frank With Me
darlings
The Darlings
As Close to Us as Breathing
How to Party with an Infant
Chronicle of a Last Summer
women
The Women in the Castle
The Adventuress
The Adventuress by N.D. Coleridge
woods
We Went to the Woods
horses
Dark Horses by Susan Mihalic
summer
Summer Thrillers: Mini-Reviews

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1950s, ecco, friendship, morocco, suspense, thriller

Comments

  1. Susie | Novel Visits says

    July 19, 2018 at 8:05 am

    I liked this one a little more than you, but completely agree with your comparisons to Hitchcock and with the end being unsatisfying. (Though I did like how she hinted at the end in the very beginning.

    Reply
  2. Sarah's Book Shelves says

    July 19, 2018 at 6:51 pm

    Oh my gosh, from everything you’ve been saying, I thought you liked this one! I wonder if I liked it so much since I’ve never seen either of those movies! So, the plot didn’t seem warmed over to me.

    Reply
    • Catherine says

      July 20, 2018 at 10:01 am

      I was so excited about it, which may have been the problem. Plus, I have watched a lot of movies so it is hard not to draw comparisons. I really liked her writing, though, and will be interested in what she does next.

      Reply
  3. Kate W says

    July 21, 2018 at 5:16 am

    I thought this one was a letdown – a lot of hype but didn’t deliver. The number of unreliable narrators and coincidences was distracting.

    Reply
    • Catherine says

      July 21, 2018 at 1:34 pm

      Agree. I was expecting so much more.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Save time and subscribe via email

No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!

Currently Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
The Dutch House
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

goodreads.com

Affiliate Disclosure

I’m an affiliate for Indiebound and Amazon. If you click on a link that takes you to any of these sites and make a purchase I’ll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!

Archives

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2023

Copyright © 2023 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in