A Book Review:’Tiger’s Curse: Book 1′ by Colleen Houck

Spoiler Alert!

One word: SWOON!

If all of my favorite genre is mashed into one book, Tiger’s Curse certainly takes the cake. Swoon-worthy romance, teenage angst, a blue-eyed prince, history, culture, folklore, and adventure. Gosh! Where do I even begin!?

This book kept me reading even at work. I thought I was over with YA genre since I’ve always been reading A LOT of new adult and contemporary genre. And boy, oh boy, was I wrong. This is also worth the money because it went on sale for CAD 5.99 or so. So, that’s a plus. Alright. As for the story, this is a series so the first book is really just about the introduction of the characters, getting to know them, and the setting pretty much lays out what I’m going to expect in the next three books. First of all– let me just talk about Dhiren for a bit (because really, that boy kept me up all night).His transformation from white tiger to a three-hundred-year-old, blue-eyed prince is just so dreamy!

“Please don’t leave me, priya. I don’t think I could survive without you.”

 

I. CAN’T. EVEN. I can’t ask for more! He is the perfect dreamy male characters that us girls imagine when we read a novel. Although he is not very alpha-ish (except when he is in tiger form), but his boyish tendencies just makes me melt. I think that I am more attached with Ren compared to Kelsey because he is just full of mystery. If I were to choose between tiger Ren or human Ren, I’d say:

?

Kelsey, the main female character, is an independent young lady. She’s your typical fictional teenage girl– she loves reading Shakespeare, never been with a guy or in a relationship with a guy, and super confused whether or not she is attracted to Ren or not. Now, do I like her as a character?

Meh. #sorrynotsorry

The drawback in reading YA romance, in my opinion, is that the female MC is stubborn af and her talk of love and romance for me is just too… shallow. It’s like, how can you talk about ‘love’ when you don’t even try being selflessly in love with Ren!? Kelsey! WHY!?

I can’t help but think that way because growing up, I read about female leads who are at least 26 years old! So, you know where I’m coming from. It’s really hard to get away from that mature mentality that I usually get from female romance leads. Anyway, she’s still relatable because I was a teenager once. Been there, done that. I completely understand her teenage angst.

The adventure, on the other hand, is something else. I am fascinated by history and culture. This book was able to educate me in some way about India’s culture and traditions. I can just tell that the amount of research in this book is heavy, well-done, and well-executed. I say kudos to the author for creating a setting that sits perfectly with history and culture, as well as sticking true to it. Believe it or not, I even started making my own research with different Indian deities and beliefs XD. That’s how hungover I was after reading book 1.

Overall, I give this book a 8/10. I think it’s the adventure that really weave the story together. I am currently reading book 2 now and I will surely post another book review.

So I’ll see you around!