Tangerine audiobook

Tangerine by Christine Mangan is a 2018 Ecco publication. I seldom give much credence to author recommendations, having learned a long time ago, that they are mostly meaningless. I've helped authors through various stages of marketing, and trust me, sometimes authors just pull those blurb quotes right out of thin air without even reading the book first. But… Then I saw that Joyce Carol Oates had written an endorsement for this debut novel, saying:“As if Donna Tartt, Gillian Flynn, and Patricia Highsmith had collaborated on a screenplay to be filmed by Hitchcock—suspenseful and atmospheric.”I must admit, I was intrigued, and the synopsis did capture my attention. That, along with a few friend reviews, convinced me to see what all the fuss was about. I can tell you up front this book may not be for everyone, but I really liked it. The time period- 1950’s, the location- Morocco- sets the stage nicely, for a charlatan tale of obsession and manipulation that left me chilled to the core. Alice and Lucy were roommates until a horrendous incident separated them. Not long afterwards, Alice got married and moved to Morocco. Now, Lucy has decided to take a vacation to Morocco to visit her old friend-showing up unannounced, out of the blue, without an invitation. ‘Everything changes, sooner or later. Time moves along, without constraints- no matter how hard one may attempt to pause, to alter, to rewrite it. Quite simply, there is nothing to stop it, nothing at all.”Lucy is shocked by her friend’s condition, the way her husband, John, treats her, and is determined to pull the wool from Alice’s eyes and convince her to go back home with her to New York.Alice remains torn, slowly coming around to Lucy’s way of thinking- until her husband disappears…This novel is certainly a slow burner, but the atmosphere alone was enough to keep me invested in the story. There are a few minor issues, places that didn’t gel completely, but books centered around fixations and obsessions must allow for a few inconsistencies here and there, as characters create and absorb information and respond to it, occasionally reacting to revelations in unexpected ways, as we would in reality. “There were moments when I had thought that I did not so much want her as wanted to be her” This is one twisted and deliciously wicked little tale and does most assuredly have a whisper of Patricia Highsmith running through it, and a knack for leaving one feeling very unsettled, ala Gillian Flynn. I’m not comparing this book or the author to either one of these authors, or their work, but the atmosphere and clever twists on top of layers of mistrust and re-inventions did put me in mind of them, which leads me to believe JCO may have really read this book and her assessment was spot-on. However, this little gem stands on its own merits just fine and this author is definitely one to watch. I have the feeling this book may end up being underappreciated, which is too bad, because it really is a very worthy competitor, extremely well written, and certainly a cut above the average, over rated, psychological thriller out there, and most definitely falls into the literary thriller category. As for me, I am almost embarrassingly grateful and quite appreciative of the work done here. There are so few novels, especially within this genre, written with this type of prose, this ability to create such rich characterizations, against such a vivid backdrop.“I had realized what a hard place it could be. It was not a place where one simply arrived and belonged- no, I imagined it was a process, a trial, even an initiation of sorts, one that only the bravest survived, it was a place that inspired rebellion, a place that demanded it, of its people, of its citizens. A place where everyone had to constantly adapt, struggle, fight for what they wanted.” I found the novel to be utterly chilling, but understated, quite unnerving, and well- constructed, especially for a debut novel! I highly recommend this one to readers who enjoy nuanced, atmospheric, sophisticated, and stylish novels of suspense.

4.25 STARS What is it about obsessive friendships between women that are so appealing to read about? I’m always drawn to books that feature this type of female-frenemy-relationship. I think there is so much more that can be added to the plot than just the usual he/she torrid love/hate affair that dominate this genre’s selections.Tangerine is truly my idea of a dreamy, escapist novel. It is first and foremost a character analysis of two women that meet at a high-brow East Coast university as roommates. Lucy and Alice each depict two distinctive and contrasting personalities. One is meek, timid, hand-wringing. The other is brazen, steely, opportunistic. Mixed and stirred like an ice cold martini, the result is pure toxic poison with only one dreaded outcome. TANGERINE takes place mostly in Tangier, Morocco, during a political uprising in the 1950’s. One year after university, the women meet in the exotic desert setting of Tangier. The word "atmospheric" is thrown around to describe a lot of fiction these days, but in this case, atmospheric is more than an accurate label. Christine Mangan is a lovely, old-fashioned writer. She's a new author and I'm not exaggerating to say that TANGERINE will remind you of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Mangan doesn’t linger on descriptions, but the reader is always very aware of the setting and mood and it feels authentic. The book's cover is sheer perfection for setting the mood and, plus, it reads like film noir. This is a combination of several different stories (THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE come to mind) but it still feels fresh and original. It is light on action and I feel I should warn you, some readers will find this style of writing a little repetitive. However, I adore the slow burn and did find it suspenseful with tension growing throughout. It is a book for fans of Unraveling Oliver. A quiet, beautifully written, fascinating portrayal of the complicated connection between sociopath and victim.BONUS! The audiobook is exceptionally well done! Lucy sounds exactly like Scarlett Johansson (but it’s not her, I checked). However, the real ScarJo is already cast to play Lucy in the upcoming film production. Perfect choice!

Am I the only one who got really strong Talented Mr Ripley vibes from this book? I can't believe it's not mentioned on the blurb as the publishers are so eager to label books as "for fans of such and such"If you liked Ripley, you'll love this book. I really find this very much alike Patricia Highsmith's work.A tense psychological thriller set in Tangier; Tangerine introduces us the uneasy friendship between Alice and Lucy. My friendship with Alice was something that John could not understand, but more than that, it was something he did not like. I could see that now clearly. I tainted her, altered her-or his perception of her, at any rate. Our friendship was a detriment to her character, something that he wished to expunge.Alice marries John and they move to Tangier from the States. Her friend- an ex-roommate from school- Lucy just shows up one day- uninvited. As her visit stretches with no visible departure date; the tension between them increases. What has happened between Alice and Lucy a year ago and why did Lucy came to Tangier?This is not a surprise ending book but a very well-written psychological thriller. It was engaging until the end.Thanks for NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really fell into Tangerine – a tautly plotted purely character driven psychological drama where the setting is one of those characters – haunting and highly engaging, this is the story of a toxic friendship playing out against the backdrop of Tangier in a time of turmoil..The imagery in this novel is astounding – you really feel like you are walking the streets of Tangier with our main protagonists – but it is so simply done, with no need for exposition or endless descriptive passages, the place is just there, underneath the actions of the characters and you sense it on every page. Then we have Alice and Lucy – told in alternating chapters from their points of view, these girls met at Bennington, a finishing college if you like and became close friends fast. But a tragedy separated them and put Alice into a dark place, from which it seems she has still not emerged. Lucy has followed her across continents, but is it loyalty or something more sinister? As their tales are told, there is a distinct and urgent sense of menace about it, the author drawing the reader into this vivid, vibrant world where there is danger at every turn..Tangerine is unsettling, unexpected at times, plays on different versions of events but eventually the truth emerges – taking us into an ending that is razor sharp and emotionally disturbing. A clever, layered novel that will appeal to fans of the literary psychological thriller and readers like me who love a classic unreliable narrator done in old school style.We are all unreliable narrators of our own realities…Highly Recommended.

An Hitchcock Movie on a Paper ScreenLet me start by introducing the main characters of this novel:Lucy, John and Alice:Lucy is manipulative, a psychological gambler with a strong aura of fakenness.Alice is frail, out of place, and we feel her lonelinness even when she's surrounded by others.John is shallow, egotistical and cynical. He's married to Alice but they don't seem to share a great deal of intimacy.Lucy and Alice have once been like sisters, but something happened that put an end to their friendship bond — a secret persistently teasing us, and we must refrain from jumping pages to lift that veil, just in case we miss any clue or detail of a plot where everything or something could be much or slightly relevant.“Tangerine” is a charismatic and enigmatic novel where all the main characters are elaborated and psichologically sophisticated.Reading it, is like watching  an Hitchcock movie on paper 😉

Hitchcock em PapelPermitam que vos apresente o trio que protagoniza este plot:Lucy, John e Alice:Lucy é manipuladora e calculista — uma jogadora psicológica sempre em busca das melhores cartas que são criteriosamente guardadas até surgirem os momentos certos. Alice é frágil, inadaptada e mesmo quando acompanhada, sentimo-la numa aura de solidão.John é o marido de Alice — superficial, egoísta e cínico, não tem Alice em grande conta.Lucy e Alice foram em tempos melhores amigas, mas algo sucedeu que cortou o forte laço que as unia — um acidente algures no passado, que produz em nós um forte ensejo de saltar páginas para deslindar esse enigma provocador. Porém, é conveniente resistir, não vá algum detalhe mais ou menos relevante, perder-se nalgum salto mais alargado 😉“Ao Sol de Tânger” é uma viagem à exótica cidade de Tânger, e só falta o camelo 🐫 para nos sentirmos realmente por lá. É um romance carismático e enigmático, com personagens elaboradas e psicologicamente sofisticadas. Lê-lo ... é qualquer coisa como assistir a um filme de Hitchcock projectado em papel 😉

3.75/5. For a reader like me, this book had everything going for it: It’s a literary thriller set in the 1950s in Tangier, Morocco. Everything about it (from the Hitchcockian cover to the distinct setting and the plot) feels very much like a nod to the suspense and noir genre, which I'm a huge fan of. Unfolding in dual perspectives, it’s a story about an obsessive, possibly destructive female friendship, which plays with the Doppelgänger motif that I find endlessly interesting (I think we can all agree that Daphne du Maurer perfected this in Rebecca). Plus, the writing has a very stylish quality to it. It’s atmospheric, sometimes even downright sinister. All things I love in novels and can read different variations of over and over again without getting tired of it. And while this book started out pretty strong, it wasted so much of its potential in the last third or so. Without giving too much away, I feel like it should've kept some of its original ambiguity that it completely lost in the last 100 pages and particularly in the final chapter. Simultaneously, I feel like some plot points deserved further exploration and explanation. It over-explained some aspects I definitely didn’t need it to, and remained overly cryptic when I wanted more information.This being said, it’s a good book and definitely worth a read if it sounds like something you might enjoy, but I feel like in the hands of a different author it could’ve been better than it was.

I read Tangerine in its entirety in one evening. I predict this is going to be a popular beach read this summer. It's perfect for that gulp-it-down-in-one type of reading that seems to lend itself to lazy holidays, and its major strength is Mangan's ability to evoke both the romance of an exotic setting and the feeling of being a stranger in such a place.It's 1956 and recently-married Alice is living in Tangier, Morocco, where her husband John works. John adores the city and is thriving there, but its loud, busy streets have made Alice so anxious she no longer leaves their apartment. Friendless and isolated, she spends the long, hot days indoors, trying to work up the courage to go out to the market. Meanwhile, Alice's old college roommate Lucy is making her own journey to Tangier, relishing the thought of reuniting with her friend. Yet when Lucy arrives on Alice's doorstep it is immediately clear their relationship is strained and awkward, haunted by intimations of a mysterious incident a year earlier.From here, it progresses as you might expect: Alice and Lucy take turns narrating; we delve into their pasts, learning how they became friends, tension building as we wait to find out exactly what this incident was. Both women are inevitably unreliable, and regard and remember each other differently. (At their first meeting, Lucy sees Alice's virtually invisible makeup as a symbol of her expensive put-togetherness, while Alice, in her version, remembers wearing a lot of makeup and feeling garishly painted in contrast to Lucy.) The overlaps in their stories are, perhaps, even more interesting than the points at which the accounts diverge. Lucy coaxes Alice out of her cocoon and the two explore Tangier, and all the while we're aware a dramatic event is bound to disturb their newfound contentment – if only because something of the sort is mentioned in the blurb, although it doesn't happen until quite late in the book.I did wish there was a little more to it, though; the few glimpses we get of the friends' past are so juicy it's difficult to be satisfied with their slightness. (That scene with the bracelet made my skin crawl!) Occasionally I couldn't figure out whether certain features of the narrative were intentional, and therefore significant, or just oversights. For example, when relating different versions of their shared history, both Alice and Lucy mention experiencing a chill so extreme they felt they 'would never be warm again'. Initially I found this intriguing, but when I came across a third use of the phrase, I started to wonder whether the author simply didn't realise she'd repeated it. There was quite a lot of repetition in the version of Tangerine I read, but I assume at least some of this will be edited out for publication.From The Talented Mr Ripley to Notes on a Scandal, toxic, obsessive friendship is a topic ripe for drama, the perfect foundation for a riveting yarn. The stories aren't particularly similar, but this book most reminded me of M.L. Rio's If We Were Villains in that it is an almost foolproof formula executed well; a plot I have encountered many times before and am virtually guaranteed to enjoy if it's written with sufficient flair. Tangerine certainly is, though it may not be the type of novel that lingers long in the memory.If you enjoyed this, I'd recommend The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell and Look at Me by Sarah Duguid.I received an advance review copy of Tangerine from the publisher through Edelweiss.TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr

Chilling, atmospheric, and ominous!Tangerine is a well-paced, psychological thriller set in Tangier, Morocco that is told from two different perspectives. Alice, a wealthy, fragile, young woman with a history of tragedy and a husband and new home she's not entirely comfortable or content with. And Lucy, a dangerous, manipulative young lady who seems to lack a conscience and be driven by an unhealthy, violent obsession.The writing is taut and vividly descriptive. The characters are complex, flawed, and highly unstable. And the plot, using alternating chapters, does a superb job of building tension and unease as it subtly unravels and intertwines an intricate web of lies, secrets, pretense, desperation, infatuation, violence, and murder.Overall, Tangerine is a fantastic debut for Mangan that transports you to another time and place and reminds you that some friendships are not only toxic but often deadly.Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.All my reviews can be found on my blog at https://whatsbetterthanbooks.com

This was excellent! In the blurb it said this was for fans of Daphne du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith. And this turned out, happily to be exactly right. A story in an evocative setting, this psychological thriller did not disappoint. A tale of obsession, paranoia, insanity and deception, where you fear for one of the characters and marvel at the sheer creepiness of the other. A tale of a toxic and unhealthy friendship if ever there was one. Recommended.Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

Thank you so much to Ecco Books for providing my free copy of TANGERINE by Christine Mangan - all opinions are my own.This is a stunning psychological suspense debut that reminds me so much of Patricia Highsmith who I LOVE! And for full transparency I should disclose that I am a categorical fan of the psychological thriller genre, and TANGERINE is one of my new top favorites! Gorgeous, mysterious prose that you can just sink your teeth into.The story is set in the 1950’s and centers on a friendship between Alice Shipley and Lucy Mason. Alice moves to Tangier, Morocco with her new husband, and Lucy, an old college roommate, just shows up one day uninvited. As it becomes apparent that Lucy has no plans to leave, tension rises. What happened in the past that made her come to Tangier?The novel is divided up into three parts and the chapters alternate between Alice and Lucy. The descriptive language and imagery give a full color visual of the setting and the character development is superb. I absolutely love Mangan’s writing style and as we delve into the women’s past, I enjoyed slowly peeling back the layers of this story. With a devious, chilling, and murderous plot, I thoroughly devoured this book in one sitting! And can we just take a moment to appreciate this BEAUTIFUL cover?!! It’s breathtaking!

Find my full review here: http://crimebythebook.com/blog/2018/1...This is an absolutely outstanding debut suspense novel that will be an instant-hit for fans of Patricia Highsmith! This is not an action-packed read - it’s more about character development and unpacking the disturbing “friendship” between two women. LOVED it!!