Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck, Book #1 in The Tiger Saga, a.k.a. the Tiger’s Curse Series. Source: Library. Format: Paperback, 403 pages, Splinter, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc, 2011.
Whew, I know it’s been a while since I last posted, but bear with me here: I’ve been computerless and kinda still am. But here’s a review of Tiger’s Curse!
There were things I really liked and things I really didn’t like about this book. I liked the fact that the prince was cursed as a white tiger and his brother cursed as a black tiger. (Tigers in general are just cool.) I liked that the book was set in India and our characters were romping around the Indian wilderness. (Hooray for a change of culture and setting in YA novels.) I liked the romantic tension between our leads–up until it just got ridiculous (see next sentence for why). I liked the protagonist, Kelsey–up until she decided to get bitchy because she felt sorry for herself. Let me explain. SPOILER AHEAD:
There comes a certain point in the quest when it’s looking like the curse is starting to lift. Our heroine, Kelsey, who up until now has been spunky and brave, realizes that her tiger prince, Ren, will soon be able to return to the human world and he will find more opportunities and more girls. She thinks he won’t want to stay with her and the only way she can cope with this is to abruptly push him away by being a cold, mean bitch. The last third of the book was absolutely frustrating. I hated Kelsey by the end. And lost a bit of respect for the handsome prince Ren, too, because of the way he tried to force her to change her mind about him. Ugh. END OF SPOILER.
I did enjoy Tiger’s Curse up until that point, though, even if there were some incredibly illogical things along the way. Like: A teenage girl is hired to feed a circus tiger as a summer job. Hell no, that would never happen. Then said teenage girl accompanies said tiger as its handler when the animal/cursed prince is flown to his new (old?) home in India. Girl’s family is like, “Have a good trip, honey! Send us a postcard!” Um, excuse me? The girl is 17 or something. Never in a million years would anyone let an inexperienced minor be the handler of a tiger. Never. No matter how gifted she was and how tame the tiger was. Nuh-uh.
I felt like the actual quest was a bit unclear. Lots of searching temples and awakening Hindu gods. Some magic was involved. But it simply felt like we were going from point A to point B to point C with interludes in between for our characters to fall in love. But besides its plot holes that were big enough to drive a truck, I did actually enjoy this book. I flew threw it and do want to read the next one, if only to see more handsome tiger princes (I could definitely live without them being idiots, though; Kelsey wasn’t alone in the abrupt change of character) and see if our crazy protagonist gets over herself and returns to her spunky, brave, non-bitchy self. (My prediction? It’s going to take her a while, like a good half of the next book, maybe.)
The Leaning Tower of Tomes 