A complicated story which unfolds in a very unique spectacular way. I loved the idea and the development of the plot, as well as the historical references,

Queen Solomon by Tamara Faith Berger is the story of Barbra, a Jewish Ethiopian brought to Israel at age five, part of Operation Solomon. When she is a teen, our narrator's father brings her to their home for the summer. However, Barbra is a rebellious teenager, a train off its tracks. She constantly lied to the family, and would binge drink, among other things. Like sadistic mental games with our narrator. Her actions lead to some terrible circumstances that take years for him to bounce back from. But, like a bad penny, Barbra shows back up in his life. Can he survive her return with his sanity intact or will Barbra destroy his life again?

With its themes of sex and power and its crude language, I really wasn't a fan of this book. The dialogue felt stilted, and the writing rather clunky. A good deal seemed to ramble on page after page, with little cohesion and plot. I despised Barbra, and felt nothing for the narrator. I like to feel invested in the characters lives and wellbeing and just didn't feel it here. Like cult classic film, this book is likely to attract a solid, but definitely niched, fan base and I'm clearly not a fan.

***Many thanks to the Netgalley and Coach House Books for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is the third book I have read by Tamara Faith Berger, and the theme that really runs through her work is that sex is a form of power, a power to strengthen yourself, even if it means that it is also destroying you at the same time. This is the case of the narrator in her new novel, "Queen Solomon". His life changes when his family hosts a woman, Barbra, an Ethiopian Jew, whom he sees as a giant and the object of every desire that he's ever had. She quickly pulls him into an abusive relationship that does not end well. Seven years later he has a girlfriend and is a university student but everything that he does is shaped by this relationship that he had with Barbra. So when she shows up, with a man he does not approve of in the least, it turns his life back into chaos. Even though this novel have scenes of graphic sexual encounters, it seems tame compared to some of her other works. Berger seems to spend more of her time with philosophy, with Jewish history, culture, and the tangled webs from years of war, racism, and destruction. It is almost like the family around him, besides his father, might not know exactly what is going on between him and Barbra, but knows that it is not something that is healthy. His girlfriend spends a great deal of time questioning him about his motives in regards to the reasons why he only sleeps with black women and cannot be faithful, and if this is the way that he deals with the trauma of the things Barbra, his "abuser", put his through. As the story unfolds, the questions are answered not by the text but by the actions of the narrator and the pull that Barbra always will have on him. "Queen Solomon" is not going to be appreciated by everyone. Some will see it as too crass. Some will see it as too chaotic, but I see it as another solid work by Tamara Faith Berger. This actually fits well into the themes she explores often, and I feel like it's another piece to her very interesting, solid canon.

I received this as an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The description of this novella only vaguely resembles how it actually reads. What really seems to be happening here is a narration style similar to stream of consciousness, where this budding teenage narrator learns first-hand about sex the summer that Barbra, an Ethiopian Jewish girl of 18, comes to stay with his family for the summer. There is a lot of crude language, which wouldn't have bothered me if it come from a more mature mind (the narrator, not the author) and had a meaningful purpose to the narrative. The dialogue seemed stilted and unnatural and the plot was smothered in descriptions. For such a short literary narrative, this book would have been better served with plot than with the often meaningless descriptions that take up, ultimately, pages and pages of space. If you're looking to jump inside the mind of a Jewish teenage boy for over 100 pages, you've come to the right place. Other than that, I never really got into it and was grateful that Queen Solomon read so quickly. I wouldn't say that it was a bad book, just not one that's for me. Definitely more of a "niche" read. The cover art, though, is eye-catching and very striking; that I thought was well-done.**