Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm)'s Reviews > Tangerine

It is 1956, and Alice Shipley has found refuge from her past in Tangier. She’s nearly able to forget about the night a horrible incident altered the course of her life. But an unexpected visit from Lucy Mason – her college roommate who witnessed the event – threatens to expose the truth. Alice is sure she can withstand a brief visit, but the longer Lucy stays, the more Alice suffers from a familiar sense of uncertainty: Either she can’t trust Lucy, or she can’t trust her own mind.

Tangier and Lucy were the same, I thought. Both unsolvable riddles that refused to leave me in peace. And I had tired of it – of not knowing, of always feeling as though I were on the outside of things, just on the periphery.*

Tangerine’s cover clenches it. The black and white Fifties-era photograph with a pop of acid green that hints at something sour, something off. The frail woman clothed in virtuous white, shielding her eyes against the oppressive sunlight. The shadow of a palm tree in the background, reaching for her like a clawed hand. And the Hitchcockian vibes that scream, “Thriller!” Is it any wonder Tangerine got bumped to the top of Mount TBR?

It’s immediately clear from Tangerine’s opening pages that Mangan’s writing style has a soft, almost feminine quality. It’s delicate yet concise, particularly when it alludes to Alice’s and Lucy’s mental state. Alice suffers from nervous anxiety that manifests, as she describes it, as “a pressure, a grip, one that felt as though it would strangle me, for surely it possessed enough strength, enough power.”* Lucy suffers from a similar “nervous condition,”* one that, as a child, made her prone to phantom pain.

In addition to frayed nerves, Alice and Lucy have something else in common: a secret. The first half of Tangerine hinges on this shared secret – some mysterious incident from their past. Both women are aware of what happened, but neither of them will speak of it. “I decided that something was certainly amiss,” Lucy says upon seeing Alice again for the first time in over a year. “I could feel it for it seemed to fill the very room around us, crackling and sizzling, calling out to be noticed.”*

Though the dialogue is sharp and biting, it’s the unsaid that hits hardest. Tension simmers beneath the surface, and the truth lies hidden between the lines. Unfortunately, Mangan lazily bats at tension with as much enthusiasm as an obese cat. Her application of pressure is so apathetic that the narrative begins to stall. By the midpoint it’s downright stagnant. The story fails to build toward anything. The reveal, and what follows, is limp at best.

Early reviewers have drawn parallels between Tangerine and books by Gillian Flynn – a comparison that’s just laughable. Repeat: This book in no way mirrors the breathless tension and skillfully woven plots found in Gillian Flynn’s novels.

Equally frustrating is the narrative perspective. Chapters alternate between the first-person perspective of Alice and of Lucy. Though both women are quite different – Alice demure and trembling, Lucy cunning and independent – nothing distinguishes their narrative voices from one another.

Fortunately, some momentum is regained in the final quarter of the book. The easy flow of Mangan’s writing style carries Alice and Lucy to an unexpected conclusion – one that will appeal to some and irritate others.

Tangerine would have made a swell film in the 1950’s but, as a book released in modern times, is too subtle and uneventful to have any lingering effect.
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*Note: All quotes taken from an Advanced Readers Copy.

Special thanks to Ecco for providing a free ARC of Tangerine in exchange for an honest review.