Alice and Lucy are college friends who, after some sort of traumatic incident which is too-often alluded to in the beginning of the book (eventually you do get the full explanation), cut ties and have not spoken since. In the meantime, prim and proper Alice has married and moved with her husband to the hot, messy, confusing city of Tangier. Lucy appears on Alice's doorstep one day, unannounced. They dance around each other delicately at first, then less so, as the past comes back.
I love an unreliable narrator, and for a while I thought that's what Tangerine was going to give me. I don't want to say too much about what it actually gave me because that will give away the ending. I think what I can say without going too far is that the ending both seems inevitable and also is unsatisfying.
What the book provides in spades is a strong sense of place. Morocco, and specifically Tangier, is a character - twisting streets, dark alleys, chaotic medinas, vendors shouting from souks. It overflows with exoticism and confusion unlike any other city Alice and Lucy know. I almost feel as though I've been there, like my trip a few years back wasn't cancelled after all.
But the story itself, just okay.
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