Thursday, February 7, 2013

Young Adult Thursday Review: Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck

Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1)
by Colleen Houck
Summary:                     Passion. Fate. Loyalty.

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.

Tiger’s Curse is the exciting first volume in an epic fantasy-romance that will leave you breathless and yearning for more.
Review:  I have been meaning to get to this series for a while now, and I am happy to report that I was thrilled with the first installment. Kelsey is a recent high school graduate looking for a summer job when she gets placed at a local circus. One of her responsibilities is tending to its' lone white tiger Dhiren, or Ren as Kelsey comes to call him. Immediately fascinated by him, she spends all her free time at the circus at his cage either talking and reading poetry to him or sketching him in her journal. Which I find adorable, since you asked. Endearingly she learns she can trust the tiger, sitting close to the cage and even petting him. Even though she can't explain it, she has this feeling inside her that she can trust him, a wild animal, and that she should be near him. She will soon find that her gut is very much correct, when a gentleman named Mr. Kidam comes to purchase the tiger from the circus to bring back to India and offers her a job to escort the tiger to it's new home............wait, what?
        A bring problem I have with this story starts right there. At first I asked who in their right mind wants an 18 yr old girl to escort a tiger in a foreign country, where she doesn't know the land nor the language? However, for the storyies sake, later I realized why everything had to come toger so I let that question slide, but the next few sequences absolutley befuddled me. Her foster parents just let her go, to India.....by herself.....with a strange old man....JUST LET HER GO. They didn't even put up a fight!

Wha, what? 

I know she isn't meant to be a normal girl, but no way someone would just let a girl like Kelsey just waltz off to India. She could have sneaked out, defied them completely, something that wasn't a huge plot glaze over like it happened in this book. However, after the lame attempt  to force some parental consent on a character, things get really interesting once we make it to India. We find out that the tiger is really a Prince of old India, cursed to be a tiger forever, with the exception of 24 minutes for every 24 hours, until he can find the one woman who can break the curse and make him and his younger brother Kishan man again. And I think we all know what that makes Kelsey....
         They go through some horrendous obstacles, together they find the Golden Fruit of India. This fruit is a mango that has the power to produce any food from nothing, thus providing the country with sustenance. It is also the first of 5 gifts that are needed to free the brothers from their curse. This is also where my second problem with the story, Kelsey pretty much shuts Ren down, refuses to be with him and GOES HOME. Sorry, should have typed spoiler alert there, but I could not be more pissed at her. They have this beautiful story of destiny or fate and you can feel the sizzle of their interest for each other coming off the pages, and she leaves. She thinks she isn't worth a handsome Prince's love and she shuts down her heart so she doesn't get hurt. I couldn't believe it, and I have never been more sad to close a book than I did with Tiger's Curse.
          I was furious with her choice and her reasons for leaving but I really loved this book. The story was something new and refreshing in a sea of young adult romance, that has a beautiful way of telling someone about India's jungles, villages, people and religion was fascinating. You could picture the beautiful temples of gods and goddesses and almost see everything that happened in the past meeting the present, it was truly inspiring writing that I haven't read in a very long time. I can not wait to read the second installment and suggest you buy this book ASAP!- My Opinion- Buy


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