I had a bit of trouble getting into this novel. I liked her writing style, but not necessarily the "plot". I use the quotes because it is no means a straight forward plot as the blurb might lead you to think. Natalia is on a medical run to an orphange when she learns that her grandfather died, supposedly on his way to meet her. Interspersed between the present day accounts of the aid trip and recovering her grandfather's belongings, she tells the readers various stories. Growing up during the civil war. A tiger escaping the City Zoo during World War II, who made its way to the village Natalia's grandfather grew up in and met the woman who would be known as the Tiger's Wife. Her grandfather's repeated encounters with the deathless man.

I didn't find these stories terribly interesting at first (probably due to my lack of interest in contemporary set novels), but then a quote on the back of the book caught my eye. This quote from the Washington Post reviewer mentioned magical realism in the novel, and that gave me a bit of an 'A-ha!' moment. Once as I started to think of it more like a magical realism novel, I enjoyed the story a little bit better. Don't expect to find the kind of magical realism in this like in an Alice Hoffman novel, or in a Sarah Addison Allen novel. Only really one of the story lines can really be said to have magical elements to it. But its not a strong enough magical element to balance out my feelings towards contemporary set novels.

Being a contemporary novel aside, one thing that didn't work for me was all of the stories feel disjointed. The Red Garden is made up of a collection of stories centered around the garden. The stories in The Tiger's Wife either happened to or had a minor involvement of Natalia's grandfather. It was rather like when my grandmother starts telling stories from her youth- they could include her, ones she saw or ones she was told, but they bounce around at will, drop off at any time, and she picks them back up later. The stories might be interesting, but they kind of lose me being broken up so much.

I would definitely try more from Obreht, especially if she ventures into the historic period.
I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway for an honest review. ( )

This imaginative tale — rather several tales woven in and out — was an unexpected discovery that I imagine I will read again and again and glean new nuggets. Rich with folkloric stories told by a doctor grandfather to his doctor granddaughter, the main narrator, Natalia Stefanovic, and unflinching in its telling of the Balkan States’ violent history, this skillful work of allegory and fable is set in a fictional city there. The villains and outcasts who populate this novel have rich backstories, told concisely, that illuminate the people they have become. I decided to listen to the audiobook and the excellent dramatic narration by two different readers — Susan Duerden and Robin Sachs — was captivating. Tea Obrecht’s wonderful writing deserves all the praise it got when this debut novel was published in 2011. ( )

My expectations were set too high and I had difficulty getting into the story. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood. ( )

It took me a while to get into this book, but once I was able to relax and let the story unfold I really enjoyed it! ( )

"The Tiger's Wife" left me with mixed feelings. Much of it is fascinating and beautiful, and without a doubt, Obreht is a talented writer and gifted story teller. That latter talent though, introduced a major weakness in this book--she has simply too many tales to fit comfortably into this one novel. Though they all intersect, the side-stories distract from the two main narratives, which are the grandfather's childhood with the tiger and the tiger's wife and the granddaughter's present day effort to cope with his death as she works as a doctor in a war-torn region. Even these two primary stories are somewhat in tension, competing for our interest; ultimately the grandfather's tale wins out. Some logic and motivation are missing from the telling of the events in the granddaughter's life. Her story is much less completely thought out, and therefore less interesting. Whenever we left the grandfather's childhood village, I felt disappointed and somewhat impatient--the detours did not add much to his strong core story. Obreht's editor should have encouraged her to take all of these other pieces out to either publish them as a set of related short stories or to use them as the beginnings of novels in their own right. That would have left the story of the grandfather and the tiger's wife, which would have needed hardly anything else to stand on its own as a powerful, moving piece.

A final thought about this book, which relates only to the subject matter of the Balkan conflict and not the author's handling of it. Throughout my reading of this book, I often thought of China Mieville's amazing book [b:The City & the City|4703581|The City & the City|China Miéville|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320475957s/4703581.jpg|4767909], set in a fictional area of conflict between two literally overlapping city states. Reading Obreht's book made Mieville's seem that much more amazing. ( )