Tangerine by Christine Mangan

This book came highly recommended from a Library Patron whose judgment I trust.  I checked it out, admired the gorgeous cover, and then left on my desk for a week.  Why?  The first few pages left me confused and I was trying to read it while The Kid was at dog class and it just didn't seem like a good fit. 

Then I gave it the time it deserved and I finished it in one sitting, staying up way past my bedtime.  

Alice Shipley and Lucy Mason are roommates at an all female college in the 1950's.  When life takes them in different directions, they end up together again, years later in Tangier.  Lucy shows up at Alice's new home unannounced and uninvited and is concerned that her friends has lost her sense of self after marrying an overbearing and egotistical husband.  Alice is terrified of the crowded markets and the language barrier she encounters every day in her new country and spends her days holed up alone in her apartment.  As the two women look back on their time together at Bennington, secrets and past suspicions come to light that will change both women forever.  

Christine Mangan's writing makes you feel the heat of the streets and leaves you enveloped in the scents of spicy meat and sweaty, crowded bars.  I spent the entire book not knowing which character to trust, and the characters became more unreliable as the book went on.  The book alternates between the different women's points of view.  Watching the same interaction being told from the different angles really left you wondering which interpretation was true-or if any of it was true.  There were several times that I wondered if the author was completely fooling us and neither woman told the truth.  There are more twists and turns to this story than any I have ever read before and each one kept me rethinking who the bad guy was.  Several left me wondering if there even was a bad guy.  

This was a great book, I really enjoyed it.  If you'd like, you can get a copy here, and help support the site: