Book Review: The Tiger Rising
Sep. 16th, 2011 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThey have nothing for me to do this week, but fortunately there’s plenty of reading material: right down the hall there’s a reading resource room, which has a reading corner with a big beanbag and two butterfly chairs and three overflowing bookcases, and more bookshelves marching around the perimeter of the room.
Given such abundance, it’s a bitter cruelty that I borrowed Kate DiCamillo’s The Tiger Rising. I picked it because the cover features a girl riding a tiger, and let this be a lesson to us all about choosing books by their covers because about five pages into the story it’s obvious nothing as awesome as tiger-riding is ever, ever going to happen. DiCamillo is gunning to write the most depressing book in the world this side of Bridge to Terabithia.
And, let me say this for her, she SUCCEEDS. When we meet our hero, Rob, he’s living a miserable stunted life at a rundown motel in an ever-raining Florida, going to a school where bullying is the only extracurricular activity. By the end he’s acquired a friend, but otherwise his life is headed downhill: school’s still awful, but it might not matter because his actions are probably going to get them kicked out of their miserable little motel by its vile owner, so maybe they’re going to have to move anyway.
She even contrives to make sunshine symbolic of sadness. Just in case you were hoping that it might be possible to wring some joy from the corners of the world.
And! As if that weren’t enough!
SHE KILLS THE TIGER. The tiger that was a symbol of all that’s beautiful and free! Rob and his new buddy, Sistine, let the tiger go and WITHIN FIVE MINUTES ROB’S DAD SHOOTS IT.
Yeah. Unless you’re looking for a read that will cast a grim gray pall over the world, I would steer clear of this book.
Given such abundance, it’s a bitter cruelty that I borrowed Kate DiCamillo’s The Tiger Rising. I picked it because the cover features a girl riding a tiger, and let this be a lesson to us all about choosing books by their covers because about five pages into the story it’s obvious nothing as awesome as tiger-riding is ever, ever going to happen. DiCamillo is gunning to write the most depressing book in the world this side of Bridge to Terabithia.
And, let me say this for her, she SUCCEEDS. When we meet our hero, Rob, he’s living a miserable stunted life at a rundown motel in an ever-raining Florida, going to a school where bullying is the only extracurricular activity. By the end he’s acquired a friend, but otherwise his life is headed downhill: school’s still awful, but it might not matter because his actions are probably going to get them kicked out of their miserable little motel by its vile owner, so maybe they’re going to have to move anyway.
She even contrives to make sunshine symbolic of sadness. Just in case you were hoping that it might be possible to wring some joy from the corners of the world.
And! As if that weren’t enough!
SHE KILLS THE TIGER. The tiger that was a symbol of all that’s beautiful and free! Rob and his new buddy, Sistine, let the tiger go and WITHIN FIVE MINUTES ROB’S DAD SHOOTS IT.
Yeah. Unless you’re looking for a read that will cast a grim gray pall over the world, I would steer clear of this book.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-16 04:19 pm (UTC)Okay then! One less book in the world that I have to read. Thanks for taking that bullet for me.
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Date: 2011-09-16 05:16 pm (UTC)Is The Yearling the one where the pet dog becomes rabid? Or was that Where the Red Fern Grows, or Old Yeller? I never read any of these books because I somehow learned that they all involved animals dying stupid deaths, so I get confused about which is which.
My favorite animal book was Stirling North's Rascal. There's a pet raccoon! It doesn't get shot or strangled or drowned or otherwise miserably die ever, but instead gets into mischief and is adorable.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-17 05:51 pm (UTC)There is a scene where Rob has a dream about Sistine riding the tiger. So at least the cover sort of references something that almost happens in the book? (Who am I kidding, it's the only scene in the book happy enough that it might actually induce a child to read the story. It's worse than false advertising! It's half-true, but the wrong half!)