WhiskeyintheJar reviewed Lady or the Tiger by Heather M. Herrman
More New Adult
2 stars
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
You aren’t going to like me.
Lady or the Tiger was about a young girl surviving in the American wild west and trying to come into her own. Told, mostly, all from her point-of-view with numerous back and forth time jumps, readers travel with her from the beginning at fifteen years old forced to kill a man to nineteen years old and about to be hung as the Seamstress, a serial killer. This was tagged as young adult but I'd go more new adult, there's nothing completely explicit with the sex and violence but with a first husband who is a sadist in the bedroom, I often felt the messaging of don't give up being yourself for men was stylistically written more for adult thinking; I'm a big Judy …
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
You aren’t going to like me.
Lady or the Tiger was about a young girl surviving in the American wild west and trying to come into her own. Told, mostly, all from her point-of-view with numerous back and forth time jumps, readers travel with her from the beginning at fifteen years old forced to kill a man to nineteen years old and about to be hung as the Seamstress, a serial killer. This was tagged as young adult but I'd go more new adult, there's nothing completely explicit with the sex and violence but with a first husband who is a sadist in the bedroom, I often felt the messaging of don't give up being yourself for men was stylistically written more for adult thinking; I'm a big Judy Blume fan and I couldn't help comparing the two. The “supporting women's wrongs” with claiming fierce feminism when our lead Alice/Belle lures men with her physical wiles to murder them, just wasn't groundbreaking or entertaining for me, your mileage may vary.
For a ghost, he looks very much alive.
Alice gets sent to an asylum after she murders a man and her mother is killed. From there she is forced to marry Reginald, a cop, as a means of escape. She becomes useful to him by helping him cheat while gambling and they travel the west and Europe but he's the sadist in the bedroom and when Alice locks eyes with a boy in Texas, they spend a night together and escape Reginald. Alice then becomes Belle and travels the west and Europe with the carnival of The Damned, falling in love with Cal, the Texas boy, and taming a tiger to dance with. One night things unravel and Belle runs while Cal saves her from a dire situation, but eventually at nineteen Belle turns herself in for the Seamstress murders and wants to be hung because she thinks/knows she's done wrong. Her plan gets ruined when Reginald shows up and says she's crazy, citing the asylum stay, and tries to save her.
And though I have shot two men, kissing a boy here in the fading light, without last night’s irresistible spell to carry me away or my shadow to guide me, feels like the bravest thing I have ever done.
Like I said, the timeline is cut and spliced wildly, Alice/Belle starts off ready to be hung, then you'll go from how she escaped Reginald, her murderous time as the Seamstress, time with Cal, how she married Reginald, and the time at the asylum. There's some unreliable narration going on and an ending that takes a page from the short story it's title is inspired by (The Lady or the Tiger). If you can handle non-linear stories, telling you feminism is simply doing what you want, cool real women historical figures shout-outs, a good message (lost in the story for me most the time) of don't change yourself for love or chance at it, and an open-ended ambiguous ending, then this was something different along those lines.