Ten Second Reviews

The Tiger's Wife

By Tea Obreht

In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife.

I liked this one alright when I thought it was going somewhere, i.e., all the stories would somehow relate to one another, but it ended up not really doing that, so for me, it kind of petered out.  It did manage to elicit heavy sadness at the end of the Tiger's Wife portion, so kudos, I suppose, but nothing else really gelled for me.  Did we ever really find out why her grandfather was tramping all over the (other) country?  He was looking for the Deathless Man (in all the right places), and couldn't just wait for like, his patients to die? Was he actually trying to meet up Natalie, also for reasons unknown? Unclear.  This made me look up like, reading guides to The Tiger's Wife, trying to figure out what the point was. It was interesting how the setting of The Tiger's Wife feels more fairy-tale like than many actual fantasy books, despite (or because of?) being based in war-torn eastern Europe. There's definitely you know, motifs and shit, about animals, and war, and medicine, and society, the kind of book you teach a class about in high school.  It was well written, but wandered too much, without sufficient payoff, to be truly great.

Magic for Liars

By Sarah Gailey

When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister—without losing herself. 

I liked the beginning of Magic for Liars, before you realize what a terrible PI Ivy is (although of course she still manages to solve multiple mysteries, so she's somewhat of an idiot savant, I guess), but then Ivy started doing that fashionable PI thing of drinking too much and sleeping with possible suspects, and also (not a small thing) telling like, everyone who asks, all about the murder case she is working on.  Even though, as she stresses at one point, the murderer is definitely someone in the school.  And yes, in case you were wondering, she does tell her sister (who by the way, committed the crime) like, every minute detail about the case, including showing her the love notes these students were passing which prove one of them got pregnant.   With almost no prompting whatsoever!  Even if her sister hadn't killed a fellow teacher, that's a huge invasion of privacy.  I liked the premise, but was disappointed by the almost deus ex machina way that Ivy ignored everything about her sister which would have pointed her in the right direction.  For someone who was a PI for fourteen years, it just seemed really sloppy and not clever.  Also, after all that, she still covered up for her sister not only accidentally murdering her lover, but also botching an abortion on a student.  Their whole relationship did not make sense to me.  It's an okay read, but sort of felt frustrating, like the plot and character actions and decisions felt less organic than it should have.