Book Review – Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck

Goodreads 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.

 

My Rating: 4/5 stars

This book seems to get a lot of mixed reviews. People tend to love it or greatly dislike it. I, for one, enjoyed it. The plot was interesting, adventure-filled, and fast-paced. It started off a bit slow, for me at least, but took little time picking up the pace. There weren’t many dull points where the characters were just milling about. There was usually always a specific goal to the main character’s actions. Which brings me to my next topic. Characters.

WARNING! Minor spoilers ahead. Nothing major, but for those people who don’t like any type of spoiler whatsoever, I would skip…probably the rest of the review. I try not to give away too many things but I tend to ramble about stuff…so yeah.

A lot of people seem to have a problem with Kelsey, the main character. I tend to get easily annoyed with certain characters but I honestly didn’t think Kelsey was all the bad. Sure, some of her phrases and references seem like they should come from someone much older than seventeen, but I mostly enjoyed her inner-dialogue. She was definitely in the ‘damsel in distress’ category, however, you really shouldn’t expect much from a normal teenager with little to no world experience. But she is also realistic and contributes her share of ideas throughout the story.

As a tiger, Ren is pretty freakin’ adorable. If not a bit aloof at the beginning. As a human, (come on now, that’s not a spoiler. If you really thought this entire book was about some girl having one-sided conversations with a tiger you are silly. Just sayin’…) he is stubborn, charming, and quick-witted. He’s also described as extremely sexy. Just thought I’d throw that out there. Having been stuck as a tiger for 300 years, he’s still learning the ways of the 21st century.

Kishan, Ren’s brother, isn’t in the book all that much but he is definitely your typical womanizer. There’s more going on with him than it seems, but I have a feeling whatever that is, it’ll be revealed in the second book.

ANOTHER WARNING! That’s it for minor spoilers, the content below contains fairly decent spoilers. Well, kinda. If you’re interested in the book just go read it then come back and read what else I have written. But I have to rant a tiny bit.

There are two main things I didn’t care for in this book.

The first was how Kelsey ended up in India. She works with a circus for two weeks, barely doing any actual work with the tiger, then all of a sudden she’s qualified to help care for and transport said tiger to a country half way across the world? I understand they needed to get her to India without telling her about the curse, but that was too big of a stretch for me.

The second was the romance. After it is revealed that Ren can transform into a sexy, twenty-something year old Indian prince, I knew there was going to be romance. Obviously. There’s nothing wrong with romance. However, I’m the type of person that likes it when characters take it more on the slow side. So I was happy at first, since Kelsey was more wary of Ren’s human form in the beginning. And he didn’t try to kiss her until halfway through the book. But after that the romance was just more…annoying than anything. It was like being on a roller coaster (I don’t like roller coasters, btw). She liked him and they would make out, then she decided she didn’t like him anymore because she didn’t want to get hurt…until they made out again and then she liked him again, and so on and so forth. She explains her reasons about her different feelings throughout the rest of the book, but I would have liked it better if she at least decided on something. Either take the plunge and see how the relationship unfolds or put the whole thing on hold (which she keeps saying she was going to do, but fails to follow through simply because he touches or kisses her). I understand she has problems due to her past…but still. We’ll see exactly where it all goes in the next book.

But yeah, despite those few things, Tiger’s Curse was an enjoyable read and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

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