I felt gross reading this. The narrator is a horny teenage Jewish boy. He talks about having a girl that he never met before give him a blow job in a bathroom in detail. He tells us about losing his virginity at 15 with his 15 year old girlfriend again in detail and I have no desire to read about children having sex. Then the family takes in this 18 year old Ethiopian girl and he talks about things she asks him to do to her, things he does, and things he wants to do. I was just grossed out the entire time. ( )

This is a really repulsive book. There is not one likeable character in it There is a great deal of sex in the story, but it is not in the least erotic. The author writes about sex like an auto mechanic writing about doing a tuneup! Not recommended. ( )

Operation Solomon....Barbra, a 5 year old Ethiopian Jew is brought to Israel. Turning teenager...she is sent to stay with a family for the summer. The narrator is the son of the father that has welcomed Barbra in. Barbra...what a character. She is not shy. She is not someone conflicted with traumas to the point that she is meek and afraid. Quite the opposite. She is fierce to the point of cruelty. She is rebellious and well experienced in sexuality and she uses that sexuality to gain power. The narrator...immediately becomes sucked into Barbra's sexual games. He becomes sucked into everything about her and thus gets led down a tumultuous snare of games and deception. At some point they go their separate ways and the narrator lands in University and another girlfriend..however that relationship is marred with the experiences and feelings he had for Barbra. Then Barbra reappears....

It's provocative, salacious, raw....scathing, maddening...I hated the characters and I think that in a sense the story would not be so good if I didn't. I yelled at the narrator as he pulled away and gravitated back into Barbra's grasp. It's crass and too much...offensive most times...but interesting. This story will leave you exhausted and I think that is the intention. Not for the faint of heart. It's meant for the reader that dares to explore...that wants to be right in a tale so bold and chaotic it leaves you stirred well past ending.

I've never read a Tamara Faith Berger book beyond this one...and it is my goal to change that. ( )

I hadn’t read anything by Tamara Faith Berger before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I found a sixteen year old boy with divorcing parents and serious mental issues who meets an eighteen year old exchange student with problems of her own. This book challenges the reader: uncertainty with what is real due to the unstable narrator; who is abusing whom sexually and mentally; Israel and Palestine and the Holocaust. That’s an awful lot to digest in 171 pages. I didn’t give five stars because I still have many questions about what I read. It did earn four because I will gladly reread it and try more by the author. ( )

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. ( )