The Tiger's Wife- Tea Obreht

Well, this one was more of a struggle than I was expecting. Two weeks and an overdue fine at the library later, I finally finished this critical darling up. I honestly don't know what to think of it. I neither liked nor disliked it. Mostly, I was indifferent. I guess it says something that I finished it, and was invested enough in it to want to know what happened, but I will definitely not read it again. And I'm also not sure if I'd recommend it.

Bluntly, for all the talk and press this book got, I was assuming it would be better. The narrator of the book is Natalia, a young doctor on a trip to inoculate children in a war torn country. She finds out while on this trip that her grandfather has died, and it feels like the book wants to focus on the relationship between Natalia and her grandfather, however, the novel is interwoven with stories from grandfather to granddaughter, which take up the bulk of the book. These stories include that of the tiger's wife.

I'll say this for Tea Obreht, she titled her book well. The tiger's wife is the story I was most invested in, the reason I kept reading. I also wanted to know how all of the stories would come together, and unfortunately they barely did, if at all.

I think that in itself was the biggest issue I have with the book: there were several stories that were interesting enough to suck me in while I was reading them, but it doesn’t seem to form one cohesive novel. The attempt to pull all the stories together- the relationship between the narrator and her grandfather- had very little time spent on it, and it seemed very disjointed. I don’t by any means think this was a bad book, the writing is good, I just would have preferred more cohesion. The sections where Natalia is present in the story, that is, the parts where she's not just recounting her grandfather's stories, were by far the weakest.

I am significantly disappointed with this book. I was really looking forward to reading it, and imagine my surprise when I couldn't get through it very quickly. I feel as though I've missed something, maybe there's a deeper meaning I'm not getting, but at this point, I'm done trying to figure it out.

All that being said, the writing style is good, I just feel like it needs to be more focused. I would try another book written by this author, but not unless I was really looking for something to read.

3- It was OK, and I don't regret reading it, but with such an unsatisfying end and disjointed storytelling, I am ready to move on to the next book.