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Book Review of The Tiger's Wife

The Tiger's Wife
The Tiger's Wife
Author: Tea Obreht
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
23dollars avatar reviewed on + 432 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1


This was the July 2012 pick in my neighborhood book club. It's not my cuppa.

The story opens with the death of Natalia's grandfather, with whom she had a complex relationship. Her interactions with her grandmother in the earliest scenes are emotion-rich and feel heavy with backstory, as there are apparently many things Natalia knows about her grandpa that his wife doesn't....but the book doesn't go down that path.

While journeying with a friend to deliver medicine in war-torn Serbia, Natalia begins taking the reader through the stories that shaped her grandfather's life, which he had shared with her. His experience as a younger doctor with a deathless man, and also the story of the tiger's wife. For pages and pages, we follow a tiger roaming the streets....if there is allegorical substance here, it is completely lost on me.

There was nothing here that held my interest and I had to give up after 100 or so pages. Perhaps if this were the only book I owned, I'd make myself read more, but considering there are over 200 books waiting TBR in my pile, life is just too short to be bored to sleep.

If you like engaging writing, slow pace notwithstanding, just skip this one.