Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - The Tiger's Wife

Super smart book that I have to read again. At the end the pieces started coming together but I could tell I had lost a few threads that I would like to recapture on a second read.

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kclark's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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unboxedjack's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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crazytourists_books's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The tiger's wife, if anything is an ambitious book. Did it hit the target? Almost.
Obreht's prose is beautiful, she manages to draw you in, lull you with fairy tales, hypnotise you almost, while she discusses the greatest fear and mystery of all humans. Death.
Sad, heartbreaking, unbelievably cruel at points, quite funny and sweet at others. A lovely book, with two faults. The last two pages shouldn't be there and it could have been a bit shorter.
A worthy winner of the, then orange prize, now women's prize for fiction, if you ask me.

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jesscswaine's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A tale of fragmented stories this book was an enjoyable and puzzling read.
Although it took a while to get into the style and narrative by the end I could not wait to read where the story would take me next. Each chapter was a mystery and it did not disappoint!
So much was left unsaid in a way that still felt fulfilling (specifically towards the end).
The amount of detail and backstory to what otherwise could be a plain and simple story was enrapturing. The elements of myth, folklore and superstition blending seamlessly with the core narrative, causing the story to feel even more tactile.
There must have been so much I missed upon first reading that I would not hesitate to pick up this book again.
Highly recommend!

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annemaries_shelves's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I've been wanting to read this book since it was published 10 years ago and I'm so glad I finally did.

Obreht is a talented writer at such a young age when she released this and she has a real gift for story-telling. As a dual timeline/narrative, it's often tricky to keep my attention for both timelines, and she held it. We're following our narrator, Natalia who has found out her beloved grandfather has died. Over the years they've grown apart, only to renew their bonds in the last year of his life, hiding his illness from the family. Both medical doctors, they've been shaped by the wars of their unnamed Balkan country, and what it means to practice medicine and hope and fear for their patients. Natalia is sharing two key stories that shaped her grandfather's life as a child and young man - that of the deathless man and the tiger's wife.

I've heard some ascribe magical realism as a genre/writing device to this novel - to me it's not quite accurate. The Tiger's Wife is much more steeped in mythology and folklore and how stories shape our lives and understandings of the world and our place in them. Whether or not the deathless man is the nephew of Death or the tiger's wife was in fact having a relationship with a tiger-human, is moot. What's more important is what those stories say about ourselves, our communities, our spirituality, and our cultures. The themes of death, war, hope, family, and others were really well explored. On the surface level, it's a historical novel without a specific history (the closest being a reference to the former Yugoslavia) and great writing. Below the surface, it has wonderful layers and open-ended stories and complex characters.

The first of two main critiques is I felt this book could've used another 25-50 pages to wrap up the ending. It's slightly too sudden for how deep and thoughtful this book became. The second is the handling of the tiger's wife. She's a deaf-mute teenage girl (and married since 13 because it was the 1940s rural Balkans) who's living with a man who, because of his life circumstances, became violent. On one hand, I understand that not having her point of view was a way to reinforce the 'mysticism' and mythology/folklore elements she gave to the novel (she very much functioned as a source of rumour, frustration, village myth). But on the other, it felt like she lacked agency and a voice of her own. We heard the grandfather's, the blacksmith's, the butcher's (aka her abuser) and other's perspectives in the 'past' sections, but I felt the novel was missing her perspective.

Overall, I really liked this novel - it's well written, thoughtful, and engaging. I'm excited to read whatever else Obreht puts out.

CW: disability and ableism, domestic violence, death, murder, war (including bombing), medical-related scenes/descriptions, animal death.

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fionac326's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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