Title: Tiger's Curse
Original title: Tiger's Curse
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Series: The Tiger Saga #1
Publisher: Sterling
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 403
Finished: 04/08/2015
Summary: Would you risk it all to change your destiny?
The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she’d be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world. But that’s exactly what happened. Face-to-face with dark forces, spellbinding magic, and mystical worlds where nothing is what it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.
My thoughts:
WARNING FOR RANTING AHEAD!
Uh, the second half of this book almost killed me, using the sword of annoyance, irritation, and anger. At the beginning of this book, I thought I might end up giving it a 2.5/5 stars, or even 3/5. It wasn't a great book, but it was pretty okay. The main character felt somewhat plain and fake, but she wasn't the worst I'd encountered in the fictional world. As the story progressed, it quickly occurred to me that this wasn't going to be such an original book as I'd first anticipated. While it is set in India for the most part, that was pretty much it when it came to originality as a YA book. The romance was kind of boring and predictable, the characters didn't get any more interesting, the adventure wasn't very exciting and the writing style wasn't enticing.
That was my first impression. It wasn't great, but at least it was okay.
Then I came to the second half of the book. I don't know how many times I had to suffer through unnecessarily detailed descriptions about how amazingly beautiful absolutely everything about India was and how Kelsey, the main character, was breath taken by the culture. Every meal was described in close detail and in the end I was just so very tired of it all.
Then there was Ren, the drop-dead-gorgeous love interest of the story, and his brother Kishan, his brother and rival. Of course there was some sort of love triangle going on here, and I'm sure it'll escalate in the upcoming books in the series. Ren seemed like an okay fellow. He was a typical YA guy; extremely good looking, a bit rude at times, confident, angsty over a dark past, and irresistible to the main character. Very cliché. And he fell in love with Kelsey, as predicted.
So they set out on this adventure to try and break the curse over Ren and his brother (they've been tigers for 350 years or so and can only turn into humans for 24 minutes each day) and they travel through India and venture into jungles and dangerous temples and so on. The adventures weren't exciting and since I didn't feel any connection to the characters, I didn't worry for them at all when they were in mortal danger. It was all kind of plastic.
And so, with about a hundred pages left of the book, it all took a turn for the worse. Kelsey and Ren had (spoiler alert) just started their little romantic relationship with some kisses and Ren was acting like he was very happy and appeared to be a relatively nice boyfriend. But then Kelsey turns into a, excuse my language, absolute jerk. I would describe her with more rude words, but I know it wouldn't make me feel better. She starts rejecting Ren, feeling like he'd leave her when they'd finished breaking the curse. She doesn't actually tell Ren about her anxiety, but instead starts throwing temper tantrums and gives him the cold shoulder. When the poor boy/man tries to talk to her and ask what's wrong, she just snaps at him and says it's "nothing". I felt like she was suddenly five rather than eighteen years old. And then she keeps going like that for the rest of the book. Ah, it was so irritating! She wasn't smart either. On the rare occasions that she said something bordering on intelligent, the man she was with at the moment acted like he was surprised over her cleverness and loudly expressed how impressed he was that she'd figured it all out by herself and I just couldn't help thinking the man acted like that because she was a woman. It was repelling.
Tiger's Curse has an average over 4/5 stars on Goodreads, and I honestly can't understand why. I know people appreciate different styles and different books, but... argh! The only reason I can find for that high rating is that people (probably teens) who usually doesn't read much and doesn't have much experience with YA books or books in general have read this book and found its romantic and adventury elements exciting and ensnaring.
I only give this a 1.5/5 stars instead of 1/5 because I feel the series may have some hope of getting better as it goes on. I won't buy the sequel unless there's a really big sale and the price is put down a lot.
I would recommend this book to no one. Sorry, Colleen Houck.
Rating: 1,25/5
The last thing Kelsey Hayes thought she’d be doing this summer was trying to break a 300-year-old Indian curse. With a mysterious white tiger named Ren. Halfway around the world. But that’s exactly what happened. Face-to-face with dark forces, spellbinding magic, and mystical worlds where nothing is what it seems, Kelsey risks everything to piece together an ancient prophecy that could break the curse forever.
My thoughts:
WARNING FOR RANTING AHEAD!
Uh, the second half of this book almost killed me, using the sword of annoyance, irritation, and anger. At the beginning of this book, I thought I might end up giving it a 2.5/5 stars, or even 3/5. It wasn't a great book, but it was pretty okay. The main character felt somewhat plain and fake, but she wasn't the worst I'd encountered in the fictional world. As the story progressed, it quickly occurred to me that this wasn't going to be such an original book as I'd first anticipated. While it is set in India for the most part, that was pretty much it when it came to originality as a YA book. The romance was kind of boring and predictable, the characters didn't get any more interesting, the adventure wasn't very exciting and the writing style wasn't enticing.
That was my first impression. It wasn't great, but at least it was okay.
Then I came to the second half of the book. I don't know how many times I had to suffer through unnecessarily detailed descriptions about how amazingly beautiful absolutely everything about India was and how Kelsey, the main character, was breath taken by the culture. Every meal was described in close detail and in the end I was just so very tired of it all.
Then there was Ren, the drop-dead-gorgeous love interest of the story, and his brother Kishan, his brother and rival. Of course there was some sort of love triangle going on here, and I'm sure it'll escalate in the upcoming books in the series. Ren seemed like an okay fellow. He was a typical YA guy; extremely good looking, a bit rude at times, confident, angsty over a dark past, and irresistible to the main character. Very cliché. And he fell in love with Kelsey, as predicted.
So they set out on this adventure to try and break the curse over Ren and his brother (they've been tigers for 350 years or so and can only turn into humans for 24 minutes each day) and they travel through India and venture into jungles and dangerous temples and so on. The adventures weren't exciting and since I didn't feel any connection to the characters, I didn't worry for them at all when they were in mortal danger. It was all kind of plastic.
And so, with about a hundred pages left of the book, it all took a turn for the worse. Kelsey and Ren had (spoiler alert) just started their little romantic relationship with some kisses and Ren was acting like he was very happy and appeared to be a relatively nice boyfriend. But then Kelsey turns into a, excuse my language, absolute jerk. I would describe her with more rude words, but I know it wouldn't make me feel better. She starts rejecting Ren, feeling like he'd leave her when they'd finished breaking the curse. She doesn't actually tell Ren about her anxiety, but instead starts throwing temper tantrums and gives him the cold shoulder. When the poor boy/man tries to talk to her and ask what's wrong, she just snaps at him and says it's "nothing". I felt like she was suddenly five rather than eighteen years old. And then she keeps going like that for the rest of the book. Ah, it was so irritating! She wasn't smart either. On the rare occasions that she said something bordering on intelligent, the man she was with at the moment acted like he was surprised over her cleverness and loudly expressed how impressed he was that she'd figured it all out by herself and I just couldn't help thinking the man acted like that because she was a woman. It was repelling.
Tiger's Curse has an average over 4/5 stars on Goodreads, and I honestly can't understand why. I know people appreciate different styles and different books, but... argh! The only reason I can find for that high rating is that people (probably teens) who usually doesn't read much and doesn't have much experience with YA books or books in general have read this book and found its romantic and adventury elements exciting and ensnaring.
I only give this a 1.5/5 stars instead of 1/5 because I feel the series may have some hope of getting better as it goes on. I won't buy the sequel unless there's a really big sale and the price is put down a lot.
I would recommend this book to no one. Sorry, Colleen Houck.
Rating: 1,25/5
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