Hello, people of ImpishIdea! I’m Forest Purple, I showed up a while ago in the forums and rambled, I have a weakness for purple prose, I write fantasy, I’ve been lurking for a while, and I’ve finally gotten around to the sporking I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. This is the first time I’ve ever sporked a novel, so I’ll be enlisting a bit of help from Taffy the annoying technical expert.

T: Hi guys.

F: Our respective comments will have an F or T in front of them.

Now, on to the actual book! It’s published by Colleen Houck, whose website can be found here if you want to take a look around. Tiger’s Curse is her debut novel, and to be truthful, it’s probably one of the worst books I’ve ever read, though not quite on level with classics like the Inheritance Cycle. She pretty much states outright that the protagonist is a self-insert, and seems to think her series is comparable with success stories like that of J.K. Rowling and SMeyer (an unfortunate success, but a success all the same). Hello, arrogance! It’s been a while.

T: Not long enough.

F: What we’ve got here is your average teenage girl who fights to get the opportunity of a lifetime— wait, no, sorry, wrong book. What we’ve got here is a speshul Mary Sue who gets chosen by destiny/an Indian businessman to travel to India and take care of a circus tiger SPOILERS that’s not actually a tiger, but a hot 300-year-old Indian prince. Only Mary Sue can possibly break the curse that traps him in tiger form, of course, or I’m sure they would find someone else.

T: The main problems are the characters, the plot, the non-intentional racism, the love triangle, the conflict, and pretty much everything else that really matters in a story. The narrator seems to alternate between a petty little twelve-year-old and a fifty-year-old who’s concerned about her diet. But the writing itself is readable, if you really want to. I’d advise against it.

F: On the back cover there’s a review from Becca Fitzpatrick, author of the infamous stalker and serial killer novel disguised as a love story, Hush, Hush. Also included is a cheesy, horribly dramatic and tiny excerpt from the book, if you want to take a look:

I was dying. I knew it. At least the pain was gone. I wanted to tell him that I loved him. Then darkness overtook me …

F: I feel absolutely no emotion reading that. Nothing. Nada. Ix-nay.

T: Seeing as darling Kelsey is the main character and first-person narrator, the chances of her dying in this glamorized wish-fulfillment novel are —10.3% And here’s the inner jacket description.

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, spell- binding 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. Tiger’s Curse is the exciting first volume in an epic fantasy-romance that will leave you breathless and yearning for more.

F: Or breathless and attempting to suffocate yourself.

T: Please, don’t touch fantasy. Anything but fantasy. It’s still recovering from Paolini.

F: I guess I see how this could appeal to some people, but the melodrama … it burns …

T: Colleen also included a poem before her prologue: it’s The Tiger by William Blake, thankfully, and not some concoction of Colleen (you’ll get a taste of her poetry later, don’t worry). It’s a good poem. At least it has some connection to the novel. I don’t really have any complaints here.

F: Let’s enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

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PROLOGUE: THE CURSE

The prisoner stood with his hands tied in front of him, tired, beaten, and filthy but with a proud back befitting his royal Indian heritage.

T: I really hope that “proud back” is the purple-prosed way of saying good posture.

F: And obviously CHouck is leaping straight into melodrama. At least it’s in third person. She also feels the need to wax poetic about the draperies, pillars, and throne, until we find out that a raja named Lokesh is the one holding our magnificent hero captive. Lokesh’s daughter Yesubai and the prince’s brother Kishan are sitting next to him.

T: When the scenery is described, I just picture all three of them staring at the prince, waiting for him to say something, while he checks out the decoration.

F: Here we learn just how EVULZ Lokesh is (because sympathetic villains are so last year). The prince and Yesubai were going to be married, and the prince— screw this, Ren — states that everything he has would be at Lokesh’s disposal once that happened. Instead, Lokesh elects to kidnap him, potentially starting a war and probably ruining all alliances between their kingdoms, because Kishan wants to marry Yesubai instead. Lokesh decides that killing Ren and taking what he wants from him would be a better idea than just ASKING REN FOR WHAT HE WANTS ONCE THEY ARE FAMILY!

His arranged marriage to Yesubai was supposed to have ushered in an era of peace between the two kingdoms.

T: The best way to get a country to go to war is to kill their king. The second best way is to kill their prince. CHouck, in the world we live in, “war” is the opposite of “peace”.

F: Well, they’re obviously from another dimension. One where people use really, really weird metaphors to prove they’re Indian.

The prince strode fearlessly forward, faced Lokesh, and called out, “You have fooled us all. You are like a coiled cobra that has been hiding in his basket, waiting for the moment to strike.”

He widened his glance to include his brother and his fiancee. “Don’t you see? Your actions have freed the viper, and we are bitten. His poison now runs through our blood, destroying everything.”

T: This begs the question, how exactly does one widen their glance?

F: Lookee here, I’m Indian! Tee hee! To prove it, I’ll talk about cobras! See, aren’t I so authentic?

T: Lokesh ignores this oddly-worded statement and says he wants Ren’s piece of the Damon Amulet. If Ren doesn’t give up the piece of the Damon Amulet, he’ll be killed. What’s the Damon Amulet? We have no idea.

F: Kishan goes to the old song-and-dance “You said you weren’t going to harm him!” Lokesh, of course, threatens Kishan with death too. That’s definitely his go-to option for uncooperative folk.

T: Lokesh amends his previous statement and says he’ll kill both Ren and Kishan if they don’t both hand over their pieces of the Damon Amulet. Come on, would their parents really believe that they had both died in a freak accident at Lokesh’s palace, and he somehow ended up with their pieces of the Damon Amulet?

Ren and Kishan use Brother Telepathy!!!one! to decide to fight against Lokesh, who has just broken Kishan’s wrist. Take a hint, man, and don’t hurt your allies.

Obsession pumped up Lokesh’s neck, throbbed at his temple, and settled behind his black, serpentine eyes. Those same eyes dissected the prisoner’s face, probing, assessing for weakness. Angered to the point of action, Lokesh jumped to his feet. “So be it!”

F: Whut. This just comes out of nowhere. One minute Ren and Kishan are spreading “secret” messages, and the next, Lokesh is drawing a knife and slitting Ren’s arm open. It’s not as if they said anything!

T: Lokesh didn’t actually kill him, sadly. He just dripped Ren’s blood on a talisman, and made him spazz out from pain. While he’s lying there on the lovingly described marble, he sees his brother and his ex-fiancee both attack Lokesh, and Kishan “overtaken by grief as the life drained from Yesubai’s limp body.”

Then it all goes black … or white. It’s difficult to tell.

CHAPTER ONE: KELSEY

T: If only this meant that some chapters wouldn’t be from Kelsey’s viewpoint.

F: You think Ren would be any more interesting?

T: At least his viewpoint is in third person. And one intelligent thought per day is still more than zero.

I was standing on a precipice. Technically, I was just standing in line at a temp job office in Oregon, but it felt like a precipice. Childhood, high school, and the illusion that life was good and times were easy were behind me. Ahead loomed the future: college, a variety of summer jobs to help pay for tuition, and the probability of a lonely adulthood.

F: Yes, we know, you have nothing worthwhile in your life, it sucks, and horrible things like COLLEGE gasp are around the corner. Grow up.

T: And why are you so convinced you’re going to have a lonely adulthood? Could it be? … Are you not blond?

F: A social outcast in all romantic YA novels! Oh, the horror!

T: And of course she doesn’t live in Oregon just because CHouck does. It’s a total coincidence.

F: Kelsey is seventeen. It would be nice if she actually narrated like a seventeen-year-old … no? That’s too much? Okay.

As the job placement worker interviews her, she finds time to wangst about her dead parents. Oddly enough, we don’t even learn their names. In fact … Taff, do we ever learn their names?

T: checks book Yes. You missed it. The job placement worker asks her who her parents are. That’s the only time though.

F: That’s brilliant. It’s like CHouck knew their only purpose was the creation of wangst, so she just didn’t bother.

T: Kelsey somehow manages to land a job at Circus Maurizio, taking care of the animals for two weeks. She complains that she has no other options. She complains about having to get up at six to be there. She complains about the worker’s lack of humor.

“A tiger, huh? Sounds interesting! Are there elephants, too? Because I have to draw the line at scooping up elephant droppings.” I giggled quietly at my own joke, but the woman didn’t even crack a smile.

F: Either I just lost my mind, or Kelsey has a worse sense of humor than the Terminator.

T: She does come from an alternate universe!

I get the sense here that CHouck has a lot of those friends, the kind who laugh at anything that was meant to be funny, because the entire friendship is based on funny statements. After a while, they totally twist the way you look at jokes, as demonstrated here.

F: Are you sure I didn’t just lose my mind? It’s bound to happen when I reread this book too many times.

Moving on, Kelsey heads home, to her foster parents, who apparently ‘respect’ her. I can’t really see why. Her foster mother, Sarah, is making vegan cookies and vegetarian casserole. Kelsey thinks this is gross. Yay for respecting other beliefs! Not to mention, she’s been living with this woman for several years, you’d think she’d be used to it by now.

Mike, her foster dad, is also slightly disgusted by the dish. Really, people? Does CHouck have a vegan friend she doesn’t like or something? Sarah gives Mike dish duty for his trouble.

“Aw, honey. Don’t be mad.” He kissed Sarah again and wrapped his arms around her, trying his best to get out of the task. I took that as my cue to exit. As I snuck out of the kitchen, I heard Sarah giggle. Someday, I’d like a guy to try and talk himself out of cleanup duty with me in the same way, I thought and smiled.

T: How does one ‘smile’ the above sentence? Commas, woman, commas!

F: I don’t know, wouldn’t you rather a guy try to talk himself into cleanup duty? Or the whole thing just be unrelated to cleanup in general? It seems like manipulation. That fits the story surprisingly well, actually.

Anyhow, Mike manages to “convince” Sarah, and poor Kelsey is stuck washing dishes. We get a horrible, listed description of her bedroom, and the quilt that her grandmother made. We’re told it’s very special to Kelsey. We’re also told that Kelsey is intelligent. I’m disinclined to believe either statement. And as she gets ready for bed, she looks at images of her poor, wangsty, dead parents.

I touched the glass, placing my thumb briefly over the image of my pale face. I’d always longed to be svelte, tan, blond, and blue-eyed but I had the same brown eyes as my father and the tendency of chubbiness of my mother.

F: Who seriously touches pictures of their face? And the second sentence needs an emergency Oxford comma transplant.

T: SHE ISN’T BLOND! Who called it? Huh? I bet five dollars she’s brunette, too. Anyone want to take me up on that?

F: NO.

And finally, the required dream sequence: running happily through the forest, chased by a tiger, yadda yadda yadda. Apparently the tiger’s paws beat the ground in time with Kelsey’s heart. That actually reminds me of my NaNo novel, where the protagonist would wonder whether she had a genetic disease that made her heartbeat match the speed of her running feet. It was what I wrote about when I was behind and had nothing else to write.

T: And we’ll leave you wondering what that means about CHouck’s writing. See you next time!

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CHAPTER TWO: THE CIRCUS

Oregon almost never got too hot. An Oregon governor must have passed a law a long, long time ago that said Oregon had to always have moderate temperatures.

F: Here we have another bizarre joke-statement-thing that could, conceivably, make someone smile slightly when drunk.

T: Kelsey’s getting up early for her circus job. Poor Kelsey. I mean, it’s not like she actually went to a job office and applied to get this job, is it? Apparently we also need to know exactly what she’s wearing, and exactly what she’s packing, and how she shut the zipper on her backpack. Obviously, we couldn’t make generalizations. We need to be told everything. I mean, it’s not as if we shut zippers on a daily basis throughout our lives!

F: Kelsey complains about her foster parents getting up early in the morning to go jogging. She complains about the soy milk she has to “force [herself]” to drink. Am I sensing a theme here?

With zero sentences devoted to the car ride, we teleport to the fairgrounds. Kelsey looks at a poster of the “Famous Dhiren!” and hopes there’s only one of him, and that he doesn’t “particularly enjoy eating teenage girls.” I thought it was specialists who took care of tigers, not two-week temps.

Kelsey gets instructed to find her boss at the black and silver motor home. We then meet the most stereotypical Italian man on this side of Stromboli.

He leaned over to grasp my hand. His completely enfolded mine and he shook it up and down enthusiastically enough to make my teeth rattle. “Ah, Fantastico! How propitious! Welcome to the Circus Maurizio! We are a little, how you say, short-handed, and need some assistenza while we are in your magnifica citta, eh? Splendido to have you! Let us get a started immediatamente.

T: This big man who is actually the Maurizio in the name randomly adds ‘a’ to his sentences, and basically acts like CHouck’s only sources of information regarding Italians were old Disney movies.

F: Mr. Maurizio tells a girl named Cathleen to bring Kelsey to Matt to be his assistant. We get a one-paragraph monologue about Cathleen’s history at the circus. Do we care? No. Will Cathleen ever show up in this story again? No.

“Hey, Matt,” Cathleen said as we grabbed the bottom of the booth to help him.

She was blushing. How cute.

T: I don’t think CHouck was going for a totally cruel and sarcastic tone there, but that’s certainly how it comes out.

F: And we need to know every little romance detail about this complex circus soap opera, though we’ll never come back here. Yay for pointless information.

Kelsey helps Matt set up the booth and stack crates and … zzzzzzzz. We honestly don’t care. A load of summer camp kids come to the circus, and the description of them is very … odd.

Before I could finish eating, the camp children descended upon me in a raucous, violent flurry of little bodies. I felt like tiny buffalo were stampeding over me. My customer service-like smile probably looked more like a frightened grimace. There was nowhere for me to run. They were all around me—each one clamoring for my attention.

T: I think that CHouck tried to mix sensory description with metaphors and failed miserably.

F: The kids only exist to give Kelsey one more thing to complain about, anyway. Once the show is underway, she and Matt get seats inside, and the entire first half of the circus is given a one-sentence description. There’s more kid frenzy at intermission, and then— you knew this was coming— the tiger act, as explained by Mr. Maurizio.

“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!

T: Kelsey thinks that Mr. Maurizio is a good storyteller. I think this is the most ridiculously convoluted excuse for a story that CHouck could come up with off the top of her head.

F: Matt’s dad is the animal trainer, and he lets the big white tiger out of an ornamental wagon and into the cage with him. The tiger leaps from increasingly farther-apart stools, and Kelsey is terribly impressed.

I clapped for a long time, totally in awe of the great beast.

T: This is basically just a routine tiger act; jumping through hoops, standing on hind paws and clawing the air, and putting the trainer’s head in the tiger’s mouth. Kelsey is unreasonably stunned. You could see this act at pretty much any circus with a tiger.

F: Kelsey gains Animal Empathy level 1 and thinks the tiger seems melancholy. She also randomly smells “night blooming jasmine and sandalwood”. Just a thought: even if the tiger is a cursed ancient Indian prince, as we all know, that still doesn’t mean stereotypical “Indian” scents follow him around. This is CHouck’s idea of foreshadowing. It reminds me of Bella thinking about how weird Edward seems when everyone reading the book already knows he’s a vampire. Kelsey actually reacts like a somewhat ordinary person to random smells:

The show was over, and I was officially crazy.

T: If only.

CHAPTER THREE: THE TIGER

F: Kelsey is unreasonably frustrated with her job of cleaning up after a group of children. I have in fact cleaned up after a group of children, and although it’s a horrifying thing to do in most circumstances, Kelsey wanted this job. She wanted this. She’s lucky to have it. I therefore demand that she STOPS COMPLAINING AT ONCE.

T: After all that horrible work, like actually picking up trash [shudder], Kelsey and the Circus Folk eat dinner. And they are Circus Folk. In other words, they’re badly written caricatures that, yet again, seem to be based off a Disney movie.

F: Mr. Maurizio gives a speech that insults Italians everywhere, and takes the time to compliment Kelsey and Kelsey alone on her magnificent job of … picking up trash and selling tickets.

I waited in line with Cathleen, and then picked up my paper plate and filled it with Italian green salad, a big scoop of spinach-and-cheese-stuffed shells covered in tomato sauce, parmesan chicken, and, not having enough room on my plate, popped a warm breadstick in my mouth, grabbed a bottle of water, and sat down. I couldn’t help but notice the large chocolate cheesecake for dessert, but I wasn’t even able to finish the dinner I had on my plate. Sighing, I left the cheesecake alone.

T: This description is actually alright, though very simplistic. I wouldn’t bring it up, except for the fact that CHouck takes every possible opportunity to tell us what Kelsey’s eating. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.

F: In fact, it’s almost as if Kelsey is a middle-aged woman worried about her weight …? Nah. Couldn’t be.

T: Matt provides us with a short paragraph composed of pure Infodump telling us that the tiger (that’s what Kelsey’s calling it) has a murky history, and refuses to learn any new tricks, but it’s very docile.

F: If this wasn’t a romance book, I’d say Kelsey would be the special person who connects with the tiger and teaches it amazing tricks, and they win a prize at the associated circus convention or something. But Kelsey is even specialer than that, of course.

T: Our darling heroine meets up with Matt’s dad, who’s the tiger trainer, and he tells her about the tiger … by restating everything Matt said in a longer and more complicated way. The only new information we actually get is that white tigers are from India, not Siberia, and they don’t have a white coat to blend in with snow.

F: This is all incredibly boring. Seriously. Some people make ordinary life sound interesting. CHouck is not one of those people. It’s so obvious that she wanted to just jump straight into the romance, and is dragging through this because it’s supposed to make her a better writer or something. All it’s doing is giving Taffy the job of pinching me every ten seconds so I stay awake.

Those eyes. They were mesmerizing. They stared right into me, almost as if the tiger was examining my soul.

A wave of loneliness washed over me, but I struggled to lock it back into the tiny part of me where I kept such emotions.

T: Er, we appear to have taken a time jump and shown up in the tiger’s barn, where Kelsey is helping Matt’s dad feed him. You know, the word ‘transition’ is bandied about a lot these days …

F: Just look at the above excerpt. First off, we have melodrama to the four-hundredth power. Second, foreshadowing that this is going to be one of those heroines. “Oh, I just lost the ability to love since my parents died, but this guy is so hot, he makes me feel better!”

T: Also, Kelsey gets to stay in the barn — the loft, to be exact— and watch Matt’s dad, Mr. Davis, practice the tiger routine. That doesn’t quite seem according to protocol, but hey, if she gets eaten, I’m all for it.

Mr. Davis seemed to be a good trainer, but there were a couple of times I noticed the tiger could have taken advantage of him— but didn’t. Once, Mr. Davis’s face was very close to the tiger’s extended claws, and it would have been easy for the tiger to take a swipe, but instead, he moved his paw out of the way. Another time, I could have sworn Mr. Davis stepped on his tail, but again, he just growled softly and moved his tail aside. It was very strange, and I found myself even more fascinated by the beautiful animal, wondering what it would feel like to touch him.

T: Yes, the tiger gets plenty of opportunities to hurt Mr. Davis— such as when Mr. Davis puts his head in the tiger’s freaking mouth! That’s part of the routine, isn’t it? And they don’t want the tiger biting off Mr. Davis’s head, do they? Then naturally, they teach the tiger not to hurt Mr. Davis. At all. Because if you’re going to work with a big cat, you can’t have it be willing to “take a swipe” every time your face is close to it. This is not stunning, and a sign of how fascinating the animal is. This is common sense. This is absolutely necessary.

F: Even CHouck seems to realize how boring her show is, so she skips over it in a couple sentences so that Kelsey can grab her sketchbook and sketch the tiger. She talks to the tiger a lot. This will continue, unfortunately.

Mr. Davis comes in, and she asks if they ever tried to find him a mate. Well, of course they did, Kelsey, because in this novel that’s the highest priority in the life of any creature! But for some reason the tiger wasn’t interested.

T: Kelsey nicknames the tiger Ren now. On her own. However, she continues to call it the tiger. She feels sorry for him, stuck in captivity with no deer to hunt … but the very first thing she feels sorry for him about is him not having a girl tiger or cubs. Those are, after all, the only things one could possibly aspire to.

F: After dinner, which, again, gets a one-sentence descriptor (it’s pretty obvious what CHouck actually wants to write about here), Kelsey heads back to the barn with a copy of Romeo and Juliet. She waxes poetic about Romeo’s good qualities, and— you know what, I’ll let you handle this one, Taffy.

T: Thank you. [deep breath] ROMEO AND JULIET IS ABOUT A COUPLE OF TEENAGERS WHO FALL INTO LUST, YOU IDIOT. Yes, lust, not love. Romeo and Juliet isn’t truly a love story. It’s a tragedy about what happens when teenagers think they’re faced with love, but actually aren’t. In Shakespeare’s works, there are plenty of true love stories, such as The Taming of the Shrew, which involve the getting-to-know and give-and-take that is an integral part of actual true love. Does Kelsey know this? NO! Romeo and Juliet just seems romantic to her. Actually, with what true love is considered within this story, I’d say Romeo and Juliet fits very well. That is not a compliment, CHouck.

F: I couldn’t have said it better.

Apparently Kelsey starts spending all her free time in the barn with the tiger. I don’t know why she keeps calling him the tiger when she stated she was going to call him Ren. But, in a show a week after arriving, Ren runs around during the performance and won’t perform, and is looking around wildly. Suddenly he sees Kelsey, and looks directly at her, then starts performing again. Mysterious! Of course, since this is all just described in two paragraphs, I’m sure CHouck will provide an explanation before it ceases to be remembered … no? Of course not. What was I thinking?

Anyhow, Kelsey drops by Ren’s cage and touches his paw. This is way more dramatic than it needs to be. Everyone reading the book knows that our protagonist is not about to lose her fingers. Although I do not advocate actually touching a captive tiger without asking its trainers, it’s not as dangerous as touching, say, a wild dog. Kelsey reads I am the Cat, a poem by Leila Usher, and everything is actually okay, I guess, for a moment.

A tiger isn’t a dog or cat to be somebody’s pet. He should be free in the wild.

T: So, we should have no tigers in zoos? Do we have an anti-zoo advocate here? Read this please. It’s much more eloquent than I am. Especially the beginning.

If tigers have souls, and I believe they do, I imagine his to be a lonely and sad one.

F: What, because he gives you a feeling of sadness every time you look into his eyes?

T: She wishes the tiger was free. So do I. I adamantly wish the tiger’s cage would disappear and Kelsey would suddenly be trapped in a barn with a free tiger. After all, isn’t that what she wanted?

F: Be careful what you wish for, folks. Until next time!

Comment [11]

CHAPTER FOUR: THE STRANGER

F: We’re back! Sorry for the delay. Here’s a quick recap of the first three chapters: wangst. Lots of it.

T: Sounds accurate to me. We pick up two days later, when Kelsey sees a stranger standing next to Ren’s cage. A stranger? Get it? Hey, it’s better than having the chapter title show up at the end, right? Right?

F: This mysterious stranger is tall, distinguished, and old. He’s also muttering softly to either himself or the tiger (it’s never really made clear). Kelsey doesn’t think there’s anything weird about this whatsoever. He introduces himself as Anik Kadam, which is actually an Indian name, thank god. He heads off to discuss something with Mr. Maurizio.

T: Kelsey wonders aloud whether he has a “thing” for tigers. CHouck, have you even looked over this? Do you have any idea what that suggests?

F: Bestiality aside, Kelsey heads to the main building, where she finds everyone in a wildly uproarious panic. She goes to Matt— you remember Matt, right? The kid with no significance whatsoever?— and he basically tells her that the stranger is talking to Mr. Maurizio and everything has been paused for this Very Important Meeting. Mr. Maurizio shows up with Mr. Kadam and, with his speech peppered in Italian words, explains that Mr. Kadam will give them enough money to keep their troupe on the road for two years, because he’s going to buy the tiger!

T: Because he has a “thing” for tigers. I’ve got to say, it’ll be the most original love triangle I’ve seen in years.

F: Ick. At least Mr. Kadam’s old enough for Ren.

The two men turned and disappeared out of the building.
All at once, the hushed crowd started moving around quickly and began talking with each other. Silently, I watched them as they darted back and forth among the different groups like a flock of chickens at feeding time, scuttling in and out of the crowd and pecking for tidbits of information and gossip. They spoke in excited tones and patted each other’s backs, murmuring animated congratulations that their next two years on the road were already paid for.

T: Hey, I remember writing something that was vaguely like this. At the time, I was eight. What’s your excuse, CHouck? Are you going to plead insanity?

F: This is not the way people think. If this is supposed to really reflect Kelsey’s thoughts, then I can infer she is an utter psychopath who looks at other humans like a robot. This description is terrifyingly detached and superior. Evidently, our protagonist feels like everyone else is foolish little chicken that runs around gossiping.
Why do you hate the circus so much, CHouck?

T: Robot Kelsey thinks about how she’s going to miss Ren. Wasn’t she a temp anyway? It’s not like Ren will be here forever anyways! They’re a traveling circus!

F: Logic has officially been broken. Things can only get worse.
Also, Kelsey berates herself for getting emotionally attached. I mean, this whole excuse for a relationship makes me sick, but it’s not like she has to punish herself for actually caring about something. Let me guess, she’s going to be all afraid of emotional attachment because her parents died, and it’s going to be handled badly and turned into nothing but an excuse for more wangst. Yawn.

T: In a direct contradiction of what she just thought, Kelsey mopes about Ren leaving her and goes to talk to him in the barn. She spills out all her feelings in a sobbing tirade of angst and gets interrupted halfway through by Mr. Kadam. He asks her whether she has an “affection” for the tiger. Most people who visit a tiger in the middle of the night, sobbing about how horrible their life is, probably feels some sort of affection for the tiger involved, wouldn’t you say?

F: Turns out, Mr. Kadam’s job isn’t rescuing tigers! … I don’t know why that’s such a surprise! He doesn’t secretly work for the Indian mafia or anything, he’s just the employee of a super-powerful guy who wants Ren on his land. If this were another book, I’d think it was a scheme to skin Ren and make some money. As it is, I know that any scheme involved here is Good, because Mr. Kadam is Kind and has a Musical Voice.

T: Kelsey wonders why the mysterious employer wants Ren, and Kadam goes into a random story about the Indian prince Dhiren. Kelsey suspects no possible correlation between the story Dhiren and the tiger Dhiren, of course, because Kelsey has a very bad case of genre blindness.
Mr. Kadam gets all musical and cadency as he recounts how Story Ren was the eldest son of the Good king and Good queen, and had a younger brother who was jealous.
. . . I wish I was watching Thor instead of reading this crap.

Dhiren had a knack for impressing people easily with his acumen, intelligence, and personality. A rare combination of charm and modesty embodied in the prince made him an outstanding politician. A person of contradictions, he was a great warrior as well as a renowned poet.

T: He was also known as Gary Stu, and oftentimes unicorns would pop into existence just so they could give him flowers. And he shit gold.

F: Anything but a poet. Oh god. We’re going to read his poetry. We’re going to read his poetry.
Somebody please mail me a gun. Only one bullet will be necessary.

T: Kelsey is very curious about the story, curious enough to ask questions. And more questions. And more questions. Mr. Kadam doesn’t answer any of them, but she keeps asking questions. While he’s telling the story.
Basically, if I were Mr. Kadam, I would be strangling her right about now.

F: Despite these rude interruptions, Mr. Kadam continues to wax poetic about how brilliant Ren was. His parents arranged a marriage between him and the princess of a neighboring kingdom, whose name was Yesubai.

T: If you are actually surprised by the connection to the prologue here, please refrain from breeding.

F: While Kadam tells this part of the story, Tiger Ren freaks out and growls and paces. Kelsey tells him to shut up so she can hear the story.
1. Hypocrite.
2. Can you get any more obvious?
So, while Story Ren was away supervising military activity, Yesubai and Ren’s younger brother, Kishan, fell in love.

T: Sooooo . . . it’s like Jane and Loki. Wow. Did not need that mental image.

F: I hate to disappoint you, but not everything is as awesome as Thor. Case in point: Kishan is a wimpy freak who betrays Ren to a “ prodigious and evil man ” in order to be with his true love. Then Dhiren gets tortured to death, Kishan runs away, Yesubai commits suicide, and the evil prodigy takes over the throne.
Kelsey’s reaction:

“Wow,” I responded. “So did he love her?”

T: She’s talking about whether Tho— Ren loved Yesubai, because that’s what everyone obviously wants to know. Kadam doesn’t know if he did, which we should read as a “no”. After all, Ren can’t love Kelsey if he ever loved anyone else! Not if it’s Twu Luv.

F: Kelsey reflects on the story like a two-year-old.

“That’s a very sad sequence of events. I feel sorry for everyone, except for the bad guy, of course. A great story, though a bit bloody. An Indian tragedy. It reminds of Shakespeare. He would have written a great play based on that tale.”

T: Sorry for everyone but the bad guy? Screw you. Bad guys aren’t bad guys, they’re just people with a different way of looking at things. Oh wait, I forgot, this is a wish-fulfillment Mary Sue kingdom, wherein bad guys are bad guys because they have greasy hair and like pain.
Also, a great story? Let’s analyze the elements here: Ren is awesome. Ren gets engaged. His brother falls in love. Ren is betrayed. Everyone dies. Hardly brilliant.
Shakespeare would have written a great play? What is it with you and Shakespeare? I don’t presume anything about what Shakespeare would have done, but this isn’t a great story. Shakespeare could have turned into a great play, theoretically, but it’s not nearly good enough on its own.

F: After talking about how Tiger Ren is “one of the good guys”, Kelsey asks again what Mr. Kadam’s employer wants with this random tiger. Turns out, the mystery employer feels like he’s somehow responsible for Ren’s capture, and now he needs to make him free. I’m not sure how that works, but hey, I’ll go along.
Mr. Kadam asks Kelsey, out of the blue, to go to India with him to care for the tiger.
Holy shit.
This book could be marketed as “What Not to Do with Strangers.” Top of the list: go to India with them. Especially when you’re a young, pretty girl.

T: Kelsey doesn’t freak out, just asks about things like passports. Mr. Kadam assures her that he can arrange it all, she just needs to go along and care for Ren until he’s acclimatized, which would be about a week. This is how people get abducted, raped, and killed, Kelsey! How many impressionable young people are going to end up in bad situations because of this book?

“India’s very far away. I’ve never been out of the country before, so the idea of it is both exciting and scary at the same time.”

F: (Kelsey): Yes, I’m actually seven years old. Why do you ask?

T: If this were a character I cared about, and it wasn’t this book, I’d . . . ah, forget about it. As it is, I’m calmly sipping my soda (or would be if I had a soda) and waiting for Kelsey to learn that—

Plus, Mr. Kadam didn’t strike me as one of those creepy men with bad intentions. In fact, he seemed trustworthy and grandfatherly.

T: The only reason that men like that can actually function is because they don’t seem like creepy men with bad intentions! This is not a Disney movie, and villains do not dress in black and red and cackle in deep voices. In real life, the ones you have to watch out for look normal. If this book were real life Kelsey would be about to learn some important life lessons and never actually be able to apply them to life.

F: She calls her foster parents to talk to them about it. Good foster parents would be freaked out about this. These foster parents talk about great opportunities and suggest an early birthday for her at the circus. Kelsey hangs up and notices Mr. Kadam talking quietly to Ren again, so she tiptoes out.
You are about to trust your life to a stranger who whispers to tigers. Did you get dropped on your head as a baby or something?

T: Because CHouck can’t write transitions, we skip ahead to the party, where Kelsey’s foster parents are bedazzled with Mr. Kadam and think he couldn’t possibly have bad intentions. The cake is not a lie, but this is an awful eighteenth birthday party. Everything is finalized, Kelsey is indeed going to trust her life to a total stranger, and no one sees anything bad about that. There is something intrinsically messed up here. Something has gone terribly wrong.

F: Our darling protagonist wakes up the next morning, goes to check on Ren in the barn, and finds— surprise, surprise— that his cage is unlocked, and he’s in the barn with her!
I’ll be honest— if I was trapped in a barn with an uncaged tiger, I would climb the ladder to the loft, leap out the window, and run screaming to the tiger’s trainer. Kelsey, though, calmly and coolly tells Ren to get his furry ass back inside the cage ASAP. I mean, since he hasn’t bitten her hand off and he seems melancholy and soulful, he obviously isn’t going to kill her. He obeys her, because she is the Mary Sue god and hark! the animals do embody her every command.
She’s confused, because the cage was definitely locked last night, but just shrugs it off. It’s not like it’s a big deal when someone lets a dangerous tiger loose, after all.

T: She and Mr. Kadam sit down and plan out all the details of his intricate kidnapping, and she stops by with Matt, Cathleen, Mr. Davis, and Mr. Maurizio, telling us about how she’s already fond of them, even though they’re nothing but pointless names that showed up once or twice to push the plot forwards and then dissolved beneath the importance of Ren. Seriously, who remembers anything remotely interesting about Cathleen? Did we even learn anything remotely interesting about her? Didn’t think so.

F: Mr. Kadam’s plan involves Kelsey taking his rental car home to pick up her things, and it turns out to be a posh Bentley GTC Convertible, because Mr. Kadam is Rich. Her foster dad adores it and spends three hours with it in the garage . . . revving the engine, I guess?

T: Dear Kelsey tells us how she’ll miss her family. She shows us that she doesn’t care even remotely about them. She tells us how she’s afraid. She shows us how she’s a robot who feels nothing. She says goodbye with a lack of emotion that borders on disgust. On that ugly note, we end.

F: Until next time, where we spend forty pages sitting on a plane. Take the boredom of actual plane rides and multiply that by a hundred.

Comment [23]

CHAPTER FIVE: THE PLANE

F: First of all, I apologize. We do not spend forty pages on a plane. We spend fifteen. I do, however, believe that fifteen pages is far too long to spend on a plane if nothing whatsoever happens and the book in question isn’t a novelization of Snakes on a Plane or something.

The next morning, I awoke with great energy and felt positive and enthusiastic about the trip.

T: If anyone can find me an actual 17-year-old who thinks like this, I will offer them a million dollars. And if I ever actually speak like this, please. Show mercy. Shoot me.

F: Oh, teenagers who don’t sound like teenagers. What would YA be like without you?

Kelsey heads on down to the circus, where Ren is being loaded onto a truck. He is “calm and unruffled” and spends the entire time staring at Kelsey. Apparently this is not remotely weird to her. After all, she’s just so special that of course the tiger has nothing better to do than gaze at her beauty. After a totally uneventful drive with totally unnecessary dialogue, they’re at the airport. Transitions, CHouck. Learn them.

T: Ren is loaded onto a private plane with a “Flying Tiger Airlines” logo. Maybe CHouck didn’t realize it, or maybe she didn’t care, but that is an actual company that operated from 1946 to 1989, at which point it was sold to FedEx. Besides that, the small cargo plane described here doesn’t sound like a Boeing 747, Boeing 727, or Douglas DC-8, which were the only planes in the company when it was sold. Getting into the plane, Kelsey actually points out how different this plane looks from a commercial jet.

My new theory is that CHouck invented a random name to go with her book, and didn’t even bother Googling it to see if any other company just happened to have the same name. Research fail, my dear.

This plane was definitely different. It was luxurious, wide open, and had plenty of legroom and comfy leather reclining chairs. It was so much nicer than flying coach. Comparing this to a regular plane was like comparing a soggy, stale French fry you find under a car seat with a giant baked potato with salt rubbed into the skin and topped with sour cream, crumbled bacon, butter, shredded cheese, and sprinkled with fresh-cracked black pepper. Yep, this plane was loaded.

F: Are you ready? Brace yourselves for the freakishly detailed descriptions of food that will continue throughout the rest of the book, frequently supplemented with run-ons and comments from Kelsey’s 7-year-old alter ego, and mimicked by the loving and overworded presentation of clothes and outfits.

T: Awful narration aside, who cares what the plane looks like? There are several more paragraphs that mirror the one above, lovingly listing the beautiful comforts that this plane has, but they’re utterly pointless. After this single chapter, the plane disappears. The description doesn’t even give us an idea of what the plane looks like, just how incredibly plush and posh it is. Essentially, it’s a large proof-of-wealth badge for Mr. Kadam. I can’t recall the exact words, but this reminds me of a passage in On Writing where King points out that description needs to be proportionate to the amount of time spent in the place you’re describing. Fifteen pages, long as it is to spend on a plane, is not enough to warrant a full page of description.

F: Kelsey spends an hour and a half on the Sudoku and crossword, then finally can’t help but ask Mr. Kadam how exactly he wound up with the Flying Tiger plane. After all, that’s clearly the most pressing question here.

T: Unfortunately, Mr. Kadam’s answer makes it clear that CHouck did intend for this plane to be from the actual Flying Tiger Airlines. Apparently, Mr. Kadam’s employer was the head of the airlines, and kept the one plane for personal use after selling the company to FedEx. This still fails, however, seeing as none of the planes used by the Flying Tiger Airlines were suited to personal use. It took me ten minutes to find that.

F: To show that Kelsey is “hip” and “with it”, she references The Simpsons. She asks Mr. Kadam about the cargo the company transported, and how he ran it, and a load of other questions about this single company. Spoilers: this will never come up again. It’s not a plot point, it’s just pointless facts. If anyone were really that interested in the company, they could look it up. It looks like Wikipedia just threw up onto the pages.

“Yes, I spent a lot of time developing Flying Tiger Airlines. I very much enjoy aviation.” [Mr. Kadam] gestured to the aircraft. “What we’re riding in here is called an MD-11, a McDonnell Douglas.”

T: Now she’s just taunting me. The first ever MD-11 flight was in 1990, which was a year after the Flying Tiger Airlines were sold. Look up the friggin’ information, CHouck! Now, if this was just an imaginary company that happened to have the same name, I might be able to give her some slack, but I refuse to allow her to use a real company, then destroy logic just to give Mr. Kadam the “best” plane.

F: After he’s finished gushing over the plane that should not be, Mr. Kadam decides to share some tiger myths from his homeland.

I nodded enthusiastically, urging him to go on. I drew my legs to the side and tucked them into my chair. Then I pulled my blanket up to my chin and leaned back into my pillow.

T: TJ:LKElkj;eljk;sel;jkel;kjfjhfshei. {malfunction- shutting down}

F: That speaks for itself.

After Kelsey has cozily buried herself in the chair (suffocate, please, suffocate), Mr. Kadam exposits about the wise, gentle, brave nature of tigers, and their important role in Indian myths. All of this is absolute filler. Mr. Kadam mentions how in Islam, Allah sends tigers to protect his followers, but also to punish traitors.

“Hmm, I think if I were Islamic I would run away from it, just to be on the safe side. I wouldn’t know if it’s coming to punish or protect.”

T: {starting up} … {reading} … {malfunction- shutting down}

F: (Kelsey): I’m totes a teenager! Promise! Look at how vapid and airheaded I am!

Oh. Here we are. Time to bow before the Mary Sue’s feet, fools, for she has been chosen by tigers. Isn’t she Speshul? So, Kelsey asks if Mr. Kadam knows any “damsel-in-distress type tiger myths”. Red flag! Red flag!

He considered. “Hmm, yes. In fact, one of my favorite stories is about a white tiger that sprouts wings and saves the princess who loves him from a cruel fate. Carrying her on his back, they relinquish their corporeal forms and become a single white streak journeying into the heavens, eventually joining the stars of the Milky Way. Together they spend eternity watching over and protecting the people of Earth.”

I yawned sleepily. “That’s really beautiful. I think that one’s my favorite too.”

T: Your favorite? That’s not a story! That’s a summary! What exactly do you like about it? Wait … you haven’t even heard any other stories! {headdesk}

… Hang on. You thought I missed it, didn’t you? Well,
WHY THE SHIT IS “SLEEPILY” AFTER “YAWNED”? WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE? YAWNING WITH EXCITEMENT OR SOMETHING? SORRY IS AN APOLOGY! YAWNING IS AN INDICATION OF SLEEPINESS!
{explodes}

F: … He gets touchy about adverbs.

Kelsey is falling asleep so quickly I suspect drugs. While she’s “forcing [her] eyes open”, Mr. Kadam waxes poetic about the wonderful qualities of the girls that white tigers are drawn to. What subtle foreshadowing this is!

Mr. Kadam looked at me thoughtfully. “A white tiger is a very special kind of tiger. It is immitigably drawn to a person, a woman, who has a powerful sense of self-conviction. This woman will possess great inner strength, will have the insight to discern good from evil, and will have the power to overcome many obstacles. She who is called to walk with tigers-”

I fell asleep.

F: {gigglesnort} This parodies itself. Besides that, Kelsey is a whining, bored brat. I doubt she’ll ever display the slightest measure of these qualities. And I don’t remember that whole “imprinting” thing from Indian lore.

Kelsey wakes up and heads to the bathroom. There are four full paragraphs of description about the “beautiful rust- and cream-colored tiles set in a lovely pattern”, “soft, alabaster towels”, and a shower. I sense something is not right here.

T: {rises from the grave} Nothing is right here! The first passenger airplane to have a shower on board was unveiled in 2008- 19 years after the Flying Tiger Airline company was sold. No McDonnell Douglas has ever had a shower on board. And four paragraphs of description are spent on a bathroom, while Kelsey is only in it for five paragraphs. It is never seen again.

“Today’s lunch is crusted hazelnut halibut with buttered asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes, and a lemon tart for dessert.”

F: Thank you. I care. I really do.

They stop to refuel in New York. Kelsey pets Ren like a housecat. They lift off once more. Kelsey watches Gone with the Wind. Kelsey and Mr. Kadam eat once more.

For dinner, Nilima served us stuffed chicken Marsala with grilled zucchini and a salad. I felt a little better eating more vegetables, but then she brought out chocolate lava cakes for dessert.

T: Kelsey angsts over eating chocolate lava cakes.
Angst.
Lava cakes.

F: Kelsey takes a lesson from Bella Swan and discusses her favorite characters from literature with Mr. Kadam: Hamlet, Captain Ahab, Dr. Frankenstein, Iago, simple stuff like that.

She goes to visit Ren again (is that even possible while the plane is in the air?), and talks to Mr. Kadam about how Ren could hurt her, but he won’t, because her Sue instincts tell her that he is a friend.

Kelsey goes to the bathroom again. Then she sleeps. Then she wakes. Then she eats breakfast. Then she goes to the bathroom again. Then she feeds bacon to Ren. Then she puts her things away. {headdesk} That was … that was worse than an actual plane ride. Keep in mind, every sentence of description I just wrote required at least two paragraphs of inane chatter about it.

“Miss Kelsey, welcome to India.”

T: FINALLY.

Comment [7]

CHAPTER SIX: MUMBAI

T: Did I ever tell you these chapter titles remind me of Twilight? Short, vague, and often unrelated to half or more of the chapter?

F: As you may recall, Mr. Kadam’s plane that should not exist is landing in Mumbai. Kelsey “hadn’t expected a modern city”, because this is backwards India where everyone lives in mud huts, right? They taxi down the runway, and Ren is totally alright— just sitting looking expectant, which is not at all how animals behave on planes.

Kelsey steps down and is completely astounded by the gray sky, because she thought it was always hot and sunny in India. Seriously:

“Mr. Kadam, isn’t it usually hot and sunny in India?”

Maybe today is just a little cloudy? Apparently, you see one sky, you’ve seen ‘em all.

T: Our intelligent 18-year-old Ms. Kelsey is not aware of the existence of monsoons. I am now disinclined to believe any other positive traits that CHouck yells about Kelsey. That’s the problem with stating that a Mary Sue is smart or well-read or thoughtful or whatever. They never actually display any of those traits. The best thing to do, in my opinion, is just let the reader come to their own conclusions about the character after reading the book, not blatantly give them labels that contradict every action they take.

F: Mr. Kadam tells Kelsey that India’s got a rainy season like anywhere else, and she doesn’t react at all. It’s bad first-person POV, because she receives information and, for all we know, just ignores it. There’s no internal or external dialogue about it, there’s no acknowledgement. She wanders over to Ren’s cage with no further thought spared for the weather of India.

If this was the only time it ever happened, that would be acceptable, but this is a huge problem with amatuer first-person POV. When was the last time someone told you something and you had no reaction whatsoever to it? First-person allows the author to share the character’s thoughts, but it also demands that the author does show the character’s thoughts. It’s not acceptable for the character to just ignore the last piece of every conversation unless they’re actually not paying attention to what people say, and somehow I doubt that was what CHouck was going for.

A bunch of men are loading Ren onto a truck with chains. One of them pulls a little too hard, and Ren roars and swipes the air. Kelsey’s immediate reaction is to run forward, grab the chains, and walk Ren to the truck all on her own. He calms down, walks docily beside her, then hops up into the truck and licks her arm as she takes off the chains.

Ren looked over at the men who were still standing frozen in the same place with stunned expressions, snuffed out his displeasure at them, and growled softly.

T: (Stunned Men): She’s a Sue! Quick, get the pitchforks!

I honestly cannot fathom what “snuffed out his displeasure at them” is supposed to mean. Is snuffing like sniffing? It should mean he’s not displeased with them anymore, but why did he then growl at them? The writing just isn’t clear enough.

F: Alright. We all know that Ren is not, in fact, a tiger. That can excuse his behavior, and the fact that he does not act like a typical animal. However, nothing can excuse Kelsey’s behavior. Short of authorial knowledge implanted into her head, there’s no way she can know that Ren won’t hurt her. Remember, to the best of her knowledge right now, Ren is an actual tiger who happened to lick her hand instead of bite it when she stuck it in his cage. She somehow thinks this means she can walk him around like a dog.

Ren doesn’t act like a normal tiger, but Kelsey has shown no signs of understanding that, and we can only assume she thinks he is just a tiger. And she believes it’s perfectly safe for her to do things like pull him around on a chain. He is a tiger. Remember the goat in Life of Pi? That was not exaggeration. Tigers are not pets. They can and will destroy living things, and they are fully capable of killing teenage girls in five or so seconds. We, as genre-savvy readers, understand that the tiger will not hurt her. KELSEY DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THIS. Or at least, she shouldn’t. My conclusion is that either Kelsey is really, really stupid, or she’s already got a “connection” with Ren, which is even more stupid. We’re about to get this issue again, reversed.

T: The men lock up the truck and Mr. Kadam introduces Kelsey to the driver, then gives her a backpack. The backpack contains a compass, a lighter, energy bars, maps, and bottles of water. She’s supposed to be in the truck for a relatively short drive to the animal reserve, where she’ll be in a house that contains food and water and all that good stuff.

This is possibly the most unsubtle foreshadowing I have ever seen. And Kelsey, of course, thinks it’s all just precautions, and nothing weird is going to happen that involves her stuck in the wilderness. This is a clear case of reader vs. character expectations. If I were actually Kelsey, I might not think anything strange of the supplies. However, we as readers can recognize the “plot twist” that’s coming a mile away. When you want something to be a surprise, you’ve got to not just consider the genre savviness of the characters, because the readers are the ones you’re actually hoping to surprise. That is an issue in so many form of media.

F: Mr. Kadam says goodbye to Kelsey and leaves her alone in India.

Alone.

In India.

I’d also like to note that Kelsey speaks nothing but English—she has got a translation dictionary, but I think we all know about how helpful those are. She is also traveling with a large tiger.

If nothing else, how in hell did her foster parents ever agree to this?

We are treated to a description of Mumbai that is actually fairly decent. Its only issue is length, because there are five paragraphs describing a city where we only ever spend three pages. The amount of space you take to describe something should be directly proportional to the amount of time spent with the thing described! We already went over this!

The driver takes a wrong turn, but tells Kelsey it’s just a fast road. We suddenly warp three hours ahead in time, where they stop in a small town called Ramkola.

T: Here we go.

Mumbai is the capital of the Maharashtra state in India, which borders a piece of the west coast. Ramkola is part of the Uttar Pradesh state in the north-east. Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra are more than 1,200 kilometers apart, and the drive is estimated to be around 20 hours—not to mention that Ramkola is located in the Kushinagar district, which is about the farthest away from Maharashtra as possible. I do not care how fast your road is, CHouck, driving that distance in three hours is completely, utterly impossible.

Calling it a town would be overemphasizing the size of the place because it boasted only a market, a gas station, and five houses.

T: According to the 2001 Indian census Ramkola had a population of 13,333. It’s noted for its sugar mills and temple.

Kelsey finds a sign saying the Yawal Wildlife Sanctuary is four kilometers on. The Yawal Wildlife Sanctuary is a real place … located back in Maharashtra, over a thousand kilometers away!

I fail to understand. Why couldn’t CHouck just use an actual small town near the wildlife sanctuary? This is the same thing that happened with the plane. It’s like she’s shoving in things that might fit the situation with no regard to how they mesh with one another. Completely making up stuff is one thing, and given the proper treatment, it works. If you want to use real-life details, make sure they’re accurate, or the rules of magic or whatever excuse the differences. CHouck chooses neither of these! This is the worst way to do things properly! It just sounds like she’s trying to be official but failing to do her research, just throwing in names and hoping no one questions them!

F: The driver goes to the gas station which is apparently one of the only seven buildings in Ramkola, and Kelsey goes to get some food in a market. The following scene is completely pointless. Again, CHouck overdescribes, in this case for a tiny little market that shows up for two pages.

She said, “Please to eat and enjoy.”

F: Hooray for complete butchering of the way people who aren’t white speak! I notice that Ren, Mr. Kadam, and anyone else “acceptable” has perfect English, but the poor townspeople (and Phet, I’m looking forward to Phet) speak brokenly and make weird translation mistakes. And this translation mistake is weird. It’s not the kind that actual people would make, it’s the kind that authors who don’t do their research think actual people would make.

Lucky us, we get a full description of what Kelsey’s eating and the Indian translation for everything, which is totally unnecessary. She sits, sipping a milkshake, and sees through the window Mr. Kadam arguing with “a very handsome young man dressed in white”. Well, she isn’t completely sure it’s Mr. Kadam, because Mr. Kadam is supposed to be somewhere else, and this person is angry in a way Kelsey can’t imagine Mr. Kadam being. She hears a few of their words, whips out her dictionary, and figures out Ren the handsome man dressed in white is talking about something necessary that has to happen, and Mr. Kadam is telling him no way. The man sees Kelsey looking out through the window and steps out of sight behind the truck. Kelsey needs to know if that’s really Mr. Kadam, so she heads outside.

The store was a small, rectangular room (pg. 73)

I made my way through the maze of shelves to the door. (pg. 75)

F: Since the supposedly small room has suddenly grown a bunch of passages mysteriously (do they have no features? Is there a minotaur in the middle?), Kelsey navigates her way outside and finds that Mr. Kadam and Ren the handsome man have mysteriously vanished. I remind you that this town, in the book at least, has seven standing structures, and presumably nothing else but countryside around it. Where did Mr. Kadam go? Really?

Confused, but not bothering to think about it, Kelsey goes back into the market and pays her bill. In the time it takes her to divide a hundred rupees by forty—

I smiled to myself as I thought about my math-loving dad and his quick division drills when I was little.

—the truck vanishes! Yeah, it just straight-up disappears! In the time it takes her to divide a hundred by forty, fork over a five-dollar bill (yeah, that’s right, 100% tip), and walk back outside, the truck leaves! Kelsey is stranded. Cue the drama!

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE JUNGLE

I ran out to the gas pump and looked both ways down the dirt road. Nothing. No dust cloud. No people. Nothing.

F: So how fast are you at division, exactly? Because it couldn’t be too fast, not if there’s no dust cloud and no sign of the truck in what I assume is open countryside.

T: Miss Kelsey pokes around a bit, discovers her black bag full of all those granola bars and water bottles, and suddenly realizes OMG REN IS JUST SITTING ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD! Yes, that’s right, our heroine is so startlingly unobservant that she failed to realize there was a tiger standing in front of her. She comes to the conclusion that the driver dumped Ren and stole the truck.

Tired, scared, and alone, my mom’s words of advice came flooding back: “bad things sometimes happen to good people”; “the key to happiness is to try to make the best of, and be thankful for, the hand we’re dealt,” and her all-time favorite, “when life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie.”

T: My first complaint: inconsistent formatting. She uses a semicolon to break up the first two “wise sayings,” then switches to a comma.

My second complaint: where exactly did this come from? Apparently Kelsey just summoned it from the ether or something.

F: Agreed. This really just shows up, spews like a “hang in there kitty” poster, then vanishes. It feels like a ham-handed way to bring up the dead parents for more angst, and the angst here definitely shows—oh, this is so difficult, and I’m all alone, but I’ll remember the things my dead mom told me and soldier on despite the pain of her being gone!

Kelsey goes back to the shop, buys some jerky and a rope, then approaches Ren. She admits the sensible thing to do would be to call Mr. Kadam at the shop and get him to send some “people, professional-type people” to catch the rogue tiger. When has Kelsey ever done the sensible thing? Instead, she follows Ren, waving a jerky treat, as he walks away, then begins trotting into the jungle. I will repeat: Kelsey follows the tiger into the jungle.

I was afraid for Ren. I had absolutely no fear of him for myself, but what if others panicked and used weapons to subdue him?

F: What? Just … what?

WHY? Why in hell does Kelsey care so much about Ren’s wellbeing? WHY? There is no reason given! Seeing a perceived sadness in his eyes that for all we know is just a reflection of Kelsey’s own mental state does NOT excuse this kind of messed-up action! WHY DOES SHE CARE ABOUT A RANDOM TIGER? You tell me there’s a connection? Prove it. We have seen no connection. We have seen nothing besides Ren not eating Kelsey when given the chance! That’s like saying “you can prove this guy loves me because he doesn’t hit me”! I don’t care if there was a tingling in her soul, I don’t care if God almight reached down and planted a sign saying “you two are soul mates.” A SANE PERSON DOES NOT DO THIS. She is willing to follow a tiger (A WILD ANIMAL, AS FAR AS SHE KNOWS) into a jungle where no one has any idea where she is in a country she’s never been to before! That is stupid! That is insane!

NO.

T: Kelsey follows Ren for about half an hour, is totally lost, and notices it’s getting dark. This is where I would chose to have the zombies show up and kill her for being so mind-numbingly stupid, but alas, that does not occur. Instead, once Ren realizes Kelsey is totally lost, he comes back and allows her to tie him up. Seeing as she is totally lost, she just lets Ren tug her around in the jungle until he finds a random patch of grass and lies down. Kelsey finds a flashlight in the black bag and gives Ren a couple energy bars.

First, I untied the rope from Ren’s collar, figuring that my trying to keep him from running away was moot at this point, and then crouched down and unzipped my bag.

T: Not the narration of someone who is totally lost, you might say? I agree with you! KELSEY IS SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE IN THE MIDDLE OF INDIA WITH NO IDEA WHERE SHE IS, HOW TO GET HOME, OR HOW TO AVOID BEING EATEN BY THE TIGER WHO DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO HUNT FOR ANYTHING ELSE. AND HERE SHE IS QUIPPING ABOUT HOW SHE’D GIVE IT FOUR STARS IF IT INCLUDED A MINT AND CALMLY DESCRIBING HER ACTIONS.

F: Kelsey, using her mad Girl Scout skills, builds a little fire and a makeshift bowl for Ren to drink water. Suddenly, she hears a mysterious howl!

Ren jumped up at once and rushed off in a whirl, disappearing into the darkness. I heard deep growling and then an incensed and vicious snarl. I stared gravely into the darkness between the trees where Ren had disappeared, but he soon returned unharmed and began rubbing his side on the teak tree.

T: Two things. One: yes, CHouck actually wrote “I stared gravely into the darkness.” Two: Kelsey is so stupid, she has no idea why Ren is rubbing himself against all the trees in the area, and actually states “Gee, Ren. That must be some itch.” How old is she supposed to be again?

Kelsey sits by the fire and begins crying. Her narration remains utterly emotionless and without expression. It’s still that bored, sad monotone that doesn’t change no matter what the situation. Kelsey tries to sleep and Ren cuddles up to her. Because I know what I know, that’s creepy. If I knew what Kelsey knew, that would be frightening. In no case would it be comforting.

F: Kelsey falls asleep, and wakes up with a 500 lb tiger sleeping on her leg. Because she is stupid, she starts trying to shove Ren away. Why? Why is she not frightened of this tiger? WHY?

Anyway, she complains about her hating camping, then lets Ren lead her through the jungle, because that worked so well last time. They stop to drink water, Kelsey from a bottle and Ren from a stream, and Kelsey inventories the black bag and discovers that it’s got all the basic wilderness survival stuff— a first aid kit, bug spray, a pocketknife, a flashlight, etc. Kelsey finally begins to wonder if Mr. Kadam intended for her to get lost, and immediately dismisses it as impossible. She comes up with the explanation that he’s “just a really well-prepared Boy Scout.” She then continues to follow Ren for much of the day. Finally, they arrive at a little clearing with a hut in the middle. Kelsey wants to go knock on the door of the hut, but she ties up Ren to a tree first. Then— brace yourselves, folks, we’re about to meet Human!Ren, who is a lot more of a dick then Tiger!Ren.

“I’m sorry, Ren, but we can’t have you loose. It would scare the family. I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I started walking over to the small house, but then froze in my tracks when I heard a quiet male voice behind me say, “Is this really necessary?”

Turning around slowly, I saw a handsome young man standing directly behind me. He looked young, in his early twenties. He was taller than me by a head and he had a strong, well-developed trim body that was clothed in loose white cotton garments. His long-sleeved shirt was untucked and carelessly buttoned, revealing a smooth, well-built golden-bronze chest. His lightweight pants were rolled at the ankles, emphasizing his bare feet. Glossy black hair swept away from his face and curled slightly at the nape of his neck.

His eyes were what riveted me the most. They were my tiger’s eyes, the same deep cobalt blue.

Reaching out a hand, he spoke. “Hello, Kelsey. It’s me, Ren.”

T: One: “strong, well-developed trim body” and “smooth, well-built” seems redundant in the same paragraph (but we mustn’t forget the muscles, now, right?). Two: What does it mean to emphasize his feet? What’s the point? And three: I warn you now, the whole golden-bronze chest is nearly as prolific as the marble statue in Twilight.

F: Congratulations, everyone, you just met Ren. Ren, this is everyone. Pretty soon you’re all going to be hating each other. See you next time!

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