Book Review: The Tiger’s Wife

For book club, we recently read The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht. The verdict was split as two of us liked the book while two did not.

I didn’t like it. I thought that it was a hodgepodge of stories thrown together with no connection or meaning. The two who liked the book appreciated that nothing was decided. They liked how open-ended it was so that they could pull the book together in their heads. I thought that it was incomplete.

In reality, this book was about two stories:

1. The Deathless Man
2. The Tiger’s Wife

I really enjoyed both stories on their own. If each story appeared as a short piece in The New Yorker or a similar publication, I would have been impressed. However, in this book the stories were haphazardly slapped together through a present-day character. I was confused and annoyed.

The two stories were good---the book was not.

Next up for book club: Lamb by Christopher Moore