Tiger's Curse

So... this has definitely been one of the worst books I've read this year. Funny story, I was writing this review after DNFing the book, but while rereading for quotes, I found myself enamoured with how godawful it was and just had to keep reading. But then it got so bad I had to DNF at like page 70ish.

Colleen Houck's prose is somehow terse, utilitarian, and far too detailed at the same time. As readers, we really don't need to know every single minute thought that the main character has, but Houck puts Kelsey's ramblings about her sock drawer on full display. Houck also seems to dislike writing sentences longer than 10-15 words, which are a rarity in this book. Honestly, the prose reads exactly like mine from when I was 10, before I learnt what "show, don't tell" means and I still thought that describing the exact way a character brushes their teeth for two full pages is a good use of my time. I actually don't understand how half of this made it past an editor and into print.

Now, about the accents. Oh good lord, the ACCENTS. All the Italian characters mix Italian into their English speech, but only for words that are easily understandable by English speakers and/or have a 1-to-1 equivalent in English. (ex: "And now . . . the highlight of our programma! He was taken from the harsh, wild giungla, the jungles, of India and brought here to America. He is a fierce hunter, a cacciatore bianco, who stalks his prey in the wild, waiting, watching for the right time, and then, he . . . springs into action! Movimento!") Why couldn't Houck just make him say "jungles" once? Also "cacciatore bianco" literally means "white hunter" not "fierce hunter" as the text suggests. Whether this was a simple mistranslation or ambigious phrasing, it should have been caught by an editor long before it reached print. Also there's "Now, now . . . fate silenzio. Shh, amici miei. Let me finish! He wishes to take our tigre back to India to the Ranthambore National Park, the great tigre reserve. Mr. Kadam’s denaro will provide for our troupe for two years! Mr. Davis is in d’accordo with me and also feels that the tiger will be assuredly happier there", which is so insufferable that it deserves a special mention. I feel that there isn't really a point to making him mix languages in this manner and then immediately translating himself other than making him look "exotic" or "foreign" and/or inflating the word count. This is called Poirot Speak per TVTropes, and it is used in a fairly unrealistic manner here. There is also something to be said about the Mario impersonator Italian circus owner being named Agostino Maurizio. Maurizio, per my research, is solely an Italian first name, not a surname. So the man has two first names, I guess. We're off to a great start.

I don't think Houck could right a good Indian accent if her life depended on it, as most of the Indian characters speaking English (with the exception of Ren and Mr. Kadam) sound like a bad mixture of Yoda and Apu from the Simpsons. They sound nothing like how actual Indian people speak. Mr. Kadam also says "in the language of the Hindus", obviously referencing Sanskrit, but Hindus speak thousands of languages across India alone (this is not an exaggeration), so this is hilariously vague. Which "language of the Hindus", Mrs. Houck? Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Manipuri, Konkani, Kannada, or Malayalam? Maybe Gujarati or Punjabi? How about Bengali?.

As a person of Indian descent and a practicing Hindu, I'm a bit confused when Houck references tigers as revered "protectors of the jungle" who fight dragons, help farmers, and "tow rain clouds with [their] tails" to end droughts. Tigers are notorious for eating farmers and the story about the towing clouds with their tails is complete hogwash. If anything, tigers are feared in rural areas. While India does have dragon myths (ex: Vritra, a water dragon from the Rig Veda), they are never fought by tigers. In all my research into Indian myth, I have never found a myth referencing anything to do with tigers pulling clouds. A much better option would have been to talk about the tiger's role as the vahana (mount) of Durga (goddess who fights demonic forces and evildoers) and/or Ayyapan (the god of righteousness and truth). It would be an actual bit of foreshadowing that you have to do some thinking to get, as Durga later declares Kelsey her champion. Houck also claims that Durga's tiger is named Damon, which is such an absurdly non-Indian name that it is patently ridiculous that Houck thought anyone would believe this (Durga's tiger is never named in Hindu myth). Also from what I can tell, the claim that Allah uses tigers to defend the faithful and punish the wicked is also complete hogwash, and is possibly sacrilegious. If I debunked every single fake tiger myth Houck made, we would be here all day.

Houck's poetry writing skills are lacking, to say the least and are mostly used for clumsy bits of foreshadowing. Her poem, "The Cat", that Kelsey reads while staring at the white tiger she is tasked to take care of, is about cats declaring their superiority over humans. Who would have thought that the tiger is secretly the controlling love interest? Really, if the foreshadowing was made any more obvious, it would have to be in the form of being beat over the head with a baseball bat. Another particularly bad piece of foreshadowing is when they are transferring Ren to Mr. Kadam, and he goes on a monologue about an ancient Indian prince named Ren. It actually feels like the author/editor/publisher was idiot-proofing for the lowest common denominator of readers, so that even the densest person would get the hint that Ren the tiger might be Ren the prince.

Why do Kelsey's parents let her go off by herself with an unknown man to a foreign country? Also, why do they let her take care of the tiger at her job anyways? It seems unrealistic that a teenager would be allowed anywhere near a tiger because of the potential liability involved, especially in such a lawsuit-happy place as the US (the first bit of the book takes place in Oregon). Why does Durga choose a clueless white girl to be her champion? On that note, Durga usually does whatever she wants done herself, so why does she need a champion to start with?

Many other people already went into detail about Kelsey and Ren's toxic relationship dynamics, so I'm not going to tread already trodden ground here, but it is so godawful to read.

TLDR: Indians treat uninteresting white girl like the world revolves around her while making it painfully obvious that the author did little to no research on Indian culture and our myths and legends. Book definitely has that feel of "by white people, for white people" by treating our culture as window-dressing for a painfully paint-by-the-numbers romance. 0.5/10.

Tiger's Curse is Colleen Houck’s first novel. Its first release was as a digital offering on Amazon where it sat at the top of the Children’s Best Seller rankings for 7 weeks. It’s subsequently gone on to become a new york times best seller. It’s published in Australia by Hodder.

The Tale

Kelsey Hayes has finished High School and is facing a summer of temp work while she decides what to do with her life. She’s carries a bit of baggage, – the loss of her parents and the emotional scaring that it brings, but on the whole she’s your average young adult ready to see what the big wide world has to offer.

She lands a job with a visiting circus as a spare pair of hands for two weeks. It’s from this point on her life begins to take an unexpected turn. She falls in love with the circus’ white tiger; captivated by his calm demeanour, blue eyes and almost human sentience.

We soon find out that not all is as it seems with the Tiger Dhiren or Ren for short, he’s a cursed Indian prince, trapped in Tiger form until the one who can free him comes along. The one happens to be Kelsey and Tiger's Curse takes the reader on an adventure to India, modern and mythological, as Mr Kadam (Ren’s manservant and adviser), Kelsey and Ren attempt to unravel clues to break the curse. There’s magic, adventure and romance as Kelsey and Ren are thrown together.

An epic fantasy-romance that will leave you breathless and yearning for more?

I am aware that I am not the target demographic for Tiger's Curse , but the fact that a book is written for teens is should not excuse it for what I see as some of its faults. I wasn’t breathless (frustrated at points certainly) and I don’t yearn to read the next volume -though I have it and hope to see some growth in Houck’s writing.

The romance in this fantasy-romance was the strongest part of the novel, at least until the end where I found the somewhat juvenile bickering and melodrama could have been resolved(then to be ripped asunder by an evil and ingenious plot device).

Kelsey is, to my mind, too cynical of love, for someone who is experiencing real lust/love for the first time. She acts like someone who has had her heart broken too many times and displays wisdom that I think only comes with having loved and lost (romantically – I don’t think the loss of her parents translates).

I felt that it was right for her to have misgivings and doubts, to be a little bit scared of her first real relationship but her continued rebelling against her own desires and Ren’s obvious interest in her felt distinctly unrealistic. Towards the end of the novel Ren’s speech about having watched human society over 300 years, and knowing what he wanted should have convinced Kelsey that Ren was an adult who could make up his own mind. As I hinted above, I think the romantic tension between the two should have been resolved here, only to have them pulled apart somehow, leaving the reader on a cliff hanger.

Indiana Jones meets Twilight

The above is a pitch from Houck herself. Tiger’s Curse can be compared to the Spielberg/Lucas classic in as much as there are temples, jungles, booby traps and hidden artefacts. The element that it lacked, at least for me, was the suspense. The adventure is fairly linear – they do some research, got to a site discover a secret door or unravel a puzzle.

In unravelling clues or finding secret passages, success seemed to be achieved through happenstance as opposed to intelligence. I think there was a chance missed here, to draw the reader in, to get them to figure out some of the mystery along with the characters.

Despite the booby traps and mythological dangers I never felt that Kelsey or Ren were in any danger. Indeed the only danger to Kelsey was that her overly stubborn denial of her love for Ren would dash any chance she’s have with him. The various physical trials they had to pass seemed to be overcome with relative ease.

For the favoured of a goddess Kelsey ain’t no slayer.

Kelsey is set up as some fated saviour to the cursed Ren. In that role though, she seems to rarely step beyond that of a plot device. Other than being a compassionate person she doesn’t bring much else to the table (in the way of skills).

Early in the story we find out that she is the favoured of Durga and she is granted a magical weapon, the Gada which she wields with ease, yet Mr Kadam (who plays somewhat of a Mr Miyagi to Kelsey’s Daniel-san, or so I thought) finds difficult to lift. I was thinking at this point Kelsey was going to become a weapon wielding avatar.

I felt like we were being set-up for some buffy-esque heroine who under the tutelage of Mr Kadam would project a strong female figure - a young woman that could fall in love with her handsome Indian Tiger-man prince and able to handle herself.

Indeed I could see some possibilities for conflict between ancient Indian concepts of gender roles and modern American ones. The reader is even given a backstory to Mr Kadam, who was the Kings military strategist and proficient in several fighting arts. The mansion in which they live had a fully equipped training room, bedecked with ancient weapons.

Alas though, it’s Ren that uses the Gada, it’s Ren gets them out of any physical danger. Kelsey appears to be just along for the ride, a passenger.

A vacation for readers

I appreciate what Houck was trying to do in exposing young American readers to another culture. The execution of this left a little bit to be desired . There were a couple of very blatant info dumps that read like they were written for a non fiction piece or a travel book, wedged into awkward pieces of dialogue. It did get better thpugh, the scene where Kadam is touring around the old palace and reminiscing, felt very natural.

To appreciate a different culture there has to be some interaction with it, we get plenty of references to Indian cuisine and dress but it feels a bit superficial. As mentioned above I think Houck might have missed an opportunity to present conflicts between American and Indian culture.

Did nobody see?

I don’t get too worried about typo’s, nowadays, especially with eBooks and the rush to do parallel releases in all formats. Traditional publishing is no longer a guarantee(Was it ever?) that the book, whatever container it comes in will be without error.

I can forgive formatting errors, I can forgive repeated phrases and goodness knows I publish my fair share of grammatical errors. For the life of me though I can’t understand how the following made it through the a) author b) thousands of readers c) professional editors.

‘Back then Kishan and I tried to avoid each other as much as possible back then.’

page 287 Tiger’s Curse



Final thoughts

The book is YA and from the reaction from Teen readers, it’s been pretty well received in that demographic. So who am I to argue with success? I am aware that I bring experience from life and from reading that teen readers won’t have. I do, however, think that Houck can do better and I think that teen girls deserve a little bit more from their heroines than a passenger with confused romantic notions.

This book is a review copy provided by Hodder at no cost to myself.