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A review by bibliobrandie
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
3.0
I think my expectations were too high for this Newbery winner. The writing is lyrical, I loved the magical realism aspects as well as the Korean culture and tales, but the plot had so many holes that left me frustrated as a reader.
Lily, her sister Sam, and their mom move to live with their ailing grandmother, Halmoni. Lily loves Halmoni, she feels like Halmoni is the only person who can really see her, and I did love their relationship. However most of the characters were flat. I usually love a sister relationship but the older sister was such a jerk and the younger sister was so whiny and they were just always fighting. The story jumps around a lot from mother/daughter conflict to sisterly conflict to dying grandmother to talking tigers to being new in town and then they threw in lesbian relationship at the end for good measure. I wanted to love this book but I just didn't.
Lily, her sister Sam, and their mom move to live with their ailing grandmother, Halmoni. Lily loves Halmoni, she feels like Halmoni is the only person who can really see her, and I did love their relationship. However most of the characters were flat. I usually love a sister relationship but the older sister was such a jerk and the younger sister was so whiny and they were just always fighting. The story jumps around a lot from mother/daughter conflict to sisterly conflict to dying grandmother to talking tigers to being new in town and then they threw in lesbian relationship at the end for good measure. I wanted to love this book but I just didn't.