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[Following is a volunteer review of "Gates to Tangier" by Mois Benarroch.]

Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch is a book about … Well, I don’t really have a clue what this mess was all about in the end. The blurb said it was a story about a family, six siblings, instructed by their dead father’s will to find the half-brother that they never knew they had if they want to get their inheritance, and you better read that synopsis if you want to have any idea what’s going on as you start reading it, because it begins by throwing you in the thick of it as the children learn what is written in their father’s will. No time is spent before that to get to know any of the characters as you are just quickly given their names and expected to care about them. From there on it just gets worse.

The book is a mix between first and third person point of view. It goes from forgettable inner monologues of the various, barely distinguishable characters to third person vignettes of the family. Again, from the description I expected there would be some kind of journey, but what you get instead is these snapshots of people that never give you a complete picture.

The internal monologues hardly advance the story, but they’re a welcome a break from the third person scenes that are filled with really bad, cringeworthy dialogue. Now, to be fair it might just be due to a bad translation, or things getting lost in between languages. Whatever the case may be, they take away from any realism that the book might have in making you believe that these are actual people speaking here.

One of the reasons I picked up this book was the thought of learning something about Jewish culture intrigued me and books can be an interesting way to learn. Instead this book seems to be written for readers who are already familiar with these things since terms and names are thrown in without any explanation leaving an ignorant reader like me confused.

But my biggest objection to this book is the dislikable content. I’m not going to give away any spoilers, but let’s just say you don’t want to know what happens when the brother is actually found. That and the sexual language and profanity, which stands out like a sore thumb in any book, made the book completely unpalatable to me.

In conclusion, the stream of consciousness chapters are probably the better part of the book, but even they can’t save it. I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars, and I very rarely give such a low rating. It’s not just that I found nothing likable in this book, but it seemed to go out of its away to annoy me with its low quality, and I can’t see myself recommending this book to anyone I liked.

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Gates to Tangier
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Like AliceofX's review? Post a comment saying so!

I totally agree with you! I found it highly confusing to read and felt like scratching my head most of the time. There were a lot of missing links as well. I didn't like the language used or cringe worthy phrases either.

Thanks for your review. While reading this book, I also found the use of so many unfamiliar terms confusing. I agree with you that the turn the story takes once the lost brother is found is crude and could have been presented in a different way without going that far! Thanks for this review.

Great review. I hope you enjoy your next book much more. Unfortunately, most of Benarroch's books seem to suffer from editorial flaws.

Jaime Lync wrote:Unfortunately, most of Benarroch's books seem to suffer from editorial flaws.

Yeah, that's why I never picked another one of his books even though there's so many of them available. Reading other people's reviews did not give me the impression that this book was just a one-time dud.

AliceofX I said the same thing about not picking up more of his books but the other options available at the time forced me to pick his work a couple more time. Hopefully, you level up and have more options to choose from very soon. Good luck.