This book only cost fifty cents. It was worth that. But I'm glad I didn't pay more.The premise, CIA agent girl in love with a rich British guy in the romantic city of Marrakech, had so much promise. At least on the dust jacket. Maybe even the first fifty pages.Then the story gets cluttered.It's only just have 300 pages so that's fairly short. Lulu, Ian, Robin, Posy, Gazi, Khaled, Suma, Pierre, Taft, Walt, Tom, Habiba, Barka, Pring, Nancy, Mrs. Cotter, Mr. Cotter, Madame Frank, Amid, Lord Drumm, Desi, Miryam... that's far, far too many characters for such a short book.Lulu, as evidenced by the title, is the main character. She's in love with Ian... but Ian hardly gets developed at all. In fact, he's built up as the possible British agent to match Lulu/only her lover/a flat out terrorist but he only sort of becomes all those things. Lulu is also a terrible CIA agent. If she's any sort of representative of how CIA agents really operate, it's not really surprising that the intelligence community misses so much.The close of the book read almost like an editor said the book was getting too long and it needed to be wrapped up post haste so the author figured out the easiest, quickest way to tie everything up in neat little boxes. And the boxes are neat... if only because the story is too neat as a whole. Everything goes just as it should.In the end, I mostly just wished I was reading a book about Posy instead of Lulu. Liked it well enough to finish, but I couldn't really get on board with the narrating character, Lulu. She felt like a collage to me, with overlapping concerns that didn't meld - her cardboard Ken-doll boyfriend Ian, views on Islam and women, friendship with Brit valley-girl Posy and completely unlikely job/career as a secret agent. Not that I would have wanted her to enact the cliches of that role, but somehow I never quite bought her in it. She spends most of the time feeling insecure and confused, constantly second guessing her every thought and reaction, then winds up involved in a shocking incident that she drifts away from with imperceptible moral qualms about. I wound up as confused as Lulu. Hard to imagine that was what the author was going for, but . . . I don't know.
What do You think about Lulu In Marrakech (2008)?
It was written well. Didn't really go anywhere though and ending didn't feel
—kira
Ugh. Just don't read it. Such a bummer since I really like Le Divorce. :(
—Thhaays
