Monday, July 16, 2012

Book Review: The Tiger's Wife

DETAILS: The Tiger's Wife: A Novel by Tea Obreht. Copyright 2011. Literary fiction.

SUMMERY: Natalia, a young doctor, is traveling to a remote town on the Balkan peninsula to deliver vaccinations to an orphanage.  While there, she finds out her grandfather has died, and spends the next couple of days dealing with myths, superstitions, and stories, both those of the locals, and the ones that her grandfather passed down to her.

PROS: Masterfully written, Ms. Obreht crafts a story that jumps back and forth through time without ever losing a reader.  Reality and myth are so perfectly entwined that readers begin to loose track of which is which.  The detail and precision of this story are so exquisite and selected so flawlessly that it reads more like a memoir than a novel.  Ms. Obreht is truly a literary talent and I look forward to reading her works for years to come.

CONS: The only flaw I could say is that I felt like the characters could have been a little more developed.  The story was beautiful, but I didn't relate to the characters particularly well.

BOTTOM LINE: Not action packed, but very readable with tangible settings and flavor-packed narrative.  Four stars out of five.

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