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A review by book_concierge
The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
3.0
3.5***
In an unnamed Balkan country, a young woman tries to find answers to her grandfather’s death. She knew he was ill, but not why he was in a small town far from home when he died. As she searches for answers she recalls stories he had told her over the years of his own youth, and of the tiger’s wife.
When I was a little girl I was frequently mesmerized by the stories my grandmother and her cousin Maria would tell about our family history. They were full of interesting people, foreign (to me) locations and unexplainable magic. Some of these stories were cautionary tales, meant to teach me important lessons. All were told as factual recollections. This book reminded me of those stories, and I think it is what attracts me to magical realism in literature.
Olbreht’s writing is beautifully evocative. I can feel the bitter winds, relish the warmth of a fire, smell the musky scent of the tiger, and taste the bile of fear. If I have a complaint about the book it was that the constant jumping around in time and place made me lose focus. I appreciate that it made the book read much more like the oral traditional stories I heard as a child, but as an adult reader I would be frustrated when I was caught up in one story only to be yanked back (or forward) to a different tale. As a result I was captivated by certain sections, but not by the book as a whole.
In an unnamed Balkan country, a young woman tries to find answers to her grandfather’s death. She knew he was ill, but not why he was in a small town far from home when he died. As she searches for answers she recalls stories he had told her over the years of his own youth, and of the tiger’s wife.
When I was a little girl I was frequently mesmerized by the stories my grandmother and her cousin Maria would tell about our family history. They were full of interesting people, foreign (to me) locations and unexplainable magic. Some of these stories were cautionary tales, meant to teach me important lessons. All were told as factual recollections. This book reminded me of those stories, and I think it is what attracts me to magical realism in literature.
Olbreht’s writing is beautifully evocative. I can feel the bitter winds, relish the warmth of a fire, smell the musky scent of the tiger, and taste the bile of fear. If I have a complaint about the book it was that the constant jumping around in time and place made me lose focus. I appreciate that it made the book read much more like the oral traditional stories I heard as a child, but as an adult reader I would be frustrated when I was caught up in one story only to be yanked back (or forward) to a different tale. As a result I was captivated by certain sections, but not by the book as a whole.