A review by dotty51
The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

I feel conflicted about rating this book.  The themes and dialogue were expertly woven into the most intricate but also abstract design.  I laughed out loud so many times at the loveable and quirky deathless man’s relationship with the grandfather.  I was on the edge of my seat, despite the fact that everything was left ambiguous.  I found the language describing animals to be unmatched.  I loved the way she incorporated minute and often unnecessary details into the story without lamenting.  I felt like I was there and then some. Death, animals, war, and relationships were the main themes explored throughout this book.  Tea’s writing seemed to aim to explore why people do the things they do within the reflection of the above mentioned themes.  I loved deciphering my own meaning from random stories woven into the overarching story of Natalia and her grandfather.  Every character down to inanimate objects was done justice.  That is every character except the relationship between the wife and the tiger.  I hated the ending for that reason.  I felt like it had completely deviated from everything I loved about the book.  Natalia seemed to reveal that she thought the made up myth about the tiger and his “wife” was real.  She laid out a picture of the tiger and the girl’s intimate relationship, despite the fact that previously to this the book painted the villagers as scared and irrational.  Painting that poor girl in that way didn’t sit right with me.  I would’ve loved it if it the end only described how Natalia thought the tiger processed the “wife’s” death.  I felt like her themes would’ve been wrapped up in such a satisfying way while also staying true to the ambiguity.  but the part where she was describing the tiger mourning her death felt rushed by comparison to the overly long winded story about why a girl and a tiger fell for eachother and why Natalia thought that the myth actually happened.  Grrrr.  Anyways I’m still going to read it again and maybe skip the last five pages.  I didn’t like 5 out of hundreds of pages of riveting and masterful storytelling, so I’m going to pretend that the book didn’t end with describing a tiger and a dv victim laying together and having a child