Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse #1)

Kelsey has just finished high school and is looking forwards to one last summer as a teen before going to college and entering the uncertain, responsibility-laden world of adulthood. When Kelsey gets a summer job at a traveling circus, she befriends Ren, the circus's calm white tiger. Ren and Kelsey bond almost instantly, and the two spend all of their spare time together. When a wealthy Indian man buys Ren, he offers Kelsey the chance to come with him to India to help Ren get settled in. When Kelsey agrees, she finds herself on the other side of the world trying to break an ancient Indian curse alongside Ren and her new employer.

Kelsey wasn't a bad heroine. She's adventurous and brave to leave behind her country and go to the other side of the world, where she knows nobody and doesn't speak the local language. She's also very compassionate. Kelsey feels sorry for Ren, locked in a cage when he's not needed and entertaining circus goers when he is. Kelsey also seems good at reading people. She was very promising, but the book had some issues.

In terms of characters, an Indian prince comes into the story, and even though I liked him at first? Now, not so much. Sure, he's charming and romantic, traits of a good love interest for Kelsey. He's also very protective, always keeping an eye on her to ensure that she doesn't get hurt. He's very stubborn, which isn't always a bad thing, but I found him to be borderline overprotective. I also had to ask myself many times why he liked Kelsey so much. From the moment they met, he was very persistent even though they a barely knew each other. I think he's just lonely, and while he likes the idea of Kelsey, how well does he really know her?

The book had a couple big problems. First, like I said, the love interest was seriously weak-assed. Kelsey and the prince barely know each other, and I had a hard time buying into why the prince cared so much about a girl he had just met. Second, going along with that, Kelsey and Prince Boy were in a weird on-again, off-again relationship. One moment they would be total lovebirds, and the next they would be fighting. Kelsey was always trying to convince herself that they couldn't be together, but then she had zero resistance with him. I found their relationship confusing and annoying.come to think of it, their relationship was insta-love, one of the worst things you can do in a book. Second, on a smaller note, I thought that Kelsey's ability to read people was just a lazy way to learn about characters' personalities so Houck didn't have to take the time to show the reader who they were as a character.

I wasn't too fond of Tiger's Curse, which is a shame because I've wanted to read it for a while. The idea was interesting and I loved the Indian mythology thrown in, but the plot itself failed to draw me in, and my second major problem with the story was that it was anticlimactic. Despite any action in the story, I found myself easily bored with the book. This first installment was a letdown, but I want to read the sequel to see if things clear up. 2.5/5 stars.

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