"Tangerine" by Christine Mangan

[Bezalelle]

Has anyone read this? I've just finished it, and am slightly appalled by it.

I ought to have been put off by the hype (massive advance, optioned for a film by George Clooney, plucked from the publisher's slush pile) but I gave it a go.

Frankly, it ought to have stayed on the slush pile. I find it quite hard to understand why this sort of book is still getting published, for the following reasons [spoiler alert, if you're somehow tempted to read it]:

1. The tired (and harmful) cliche of the "psycho lesbian" roommate
2. Horribly exoticising/orientalising depiction of Tangier, including objectified "native" women
3. White protagonist framing a black man for a murder and getting away with it
4. Overwrought yet simultaneously unilluminating writing
5. A pale appropriation of the likes of Sarah Waters, Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt

Hugely disappointing, verging on annoying.

I read it last year and really didn’t like it either. As well as everything you mentioned, I remember that there were a ton of plot holes too. I do not understand the hype.

I totally agree, found it very disappointing. I was very glad that I’d borrowed it from the library, and not spent any money on it. I can’t understand how such poorly written books get such good reviews.

It's one of Waterstones featured books this month, I kept seeing it displayed around the shop. You get a free coffee if you buy it 😀