Tiger, Tiger

by Galaxy Craze

Overview

Lucy has always had a volatile marriage, one marked with frequent splits and reconciliations. So when she takes her two young children, May and Eden, and walks out on her husband, no one expects it will be for good. Until she flees England for America.

In the serene, sunbathed California landscape, Lucy, May, and Eden begin to believe that this new country might offer them a chance to reconnect. But when they settle in the Parvati Ashram, what first seemed idyllic threatens to sever their already tenuous family ties.

Like most outsiders, May views the ashram as a cult, but her mother sees it as a place of healing and salvation. As Lucy is taken deeper into the confidence of their leader, May’s initial defenses are broken down by her friendship with the manipulative proselyte, Sati. Thoughts of England slowly begin to disappear as they settle into their new reality, where blind faith challenges human decency, testing the family’s loyalties and asking if a less-than-perfect but real life is better than a vacuous ideal.

With Tiger, Tiger, Craze explores the power and limitations of human desperation, hope, and resolve as she proves that true completeness does not come from the outside, but from within

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802170545
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	07/22/2008
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	13 Years

Editorial Reviews

Craze's sequel to By the Shore is again told by the now teenage May, the levelheaded London girl coping with little brother Eden and wayward mother Lucy. When Lucy's partner, Simon (depicted in By the Shore as May's biological father but not Eden's), heads to India to buy goods for his London shop, Lucy heads to a California ashram, taking the siblings with her. There, all three's hunger for love and approval leaves them vulnerable to exploitation. While Lucy works on her troubles with the guru, Parvati, May becomes involved with Sati, a seductive young woman whom Parvati favors. May often lacks some of the sharpness of observation and tone that makes By the Shore so winning (particularly in the characterizations of fraud Parvati), but the scenes with Sati are frank and wonderful. (July)

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Publishers Weekly

Craze's sequel to her debut novel, By the Shore, outlines with mixed results the further adventures of flighty Lucy and her befuddled children, May and Eden. After yet another marital tiff, Lucy flees to a religious commune in California, dragging the children with her. Life with the charismatic guru Pavarti is peaceful at first, but as problems gradually arise, May becomes less and less sure that her family is headed in the right direction. Readers who enjoy problem novels will appreciate the pathos and poignancy with which Craze depicts the angst-ridden May, who serves as the poster child for what can go wrong for a teen without responsible parents. However, the lack of character development may frustrate some readers, as the family drifts from crisis to crisis, seemingly learning nothing. If, however, Craze is trying to make a statement about some people's inability to learn from their mistakes, she executes it beautifully, with heartfelt language and strong imagery. An interesting effort but recommended only for the largest fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ3/15/08.]
—Leigh Anne Vrabel

Library Journal

Further continental misadventures of infantile adults, seen through the eyes of their preternaturally mature children. This sequel to By the Shore (1999) revisits sensitive teenaged narrator May, her brother Eden and their selfish, frenetic mother Lucy. In characteristically melodramatic fashion, Lucy declares that she's leaving May's long-suffering father Simon. She takes her children to her parents' home in rural England and then, without warning, to America. While May is manifestly dismayed by the idea of "going on holiday" to California, there's also the promise of reinvention for this blossoming girl to consider. Muses May: "Off the plane, tanned, wearing a denim jacket, my hair wavy and bright blond from the sun. Maybe even an American accent. A new girl, thin and confident. With something changed about me, that no one could quite place; straightened like a book spine." Instead May and Eden find themselves practically kidnapped by their mother, delivered to a religious retreat called "The Pavarti Ashram," led by a manipulative guru-slash-mother superior. The author gives May a delicate, distinctive voice, and she is the stand-out character in this story, not her bizarre surroundings or the insufferable violations visited upon her by her appalling mother. May, so curious and articulate about the world around her, would prove equally interesting had she simply stayed home. The trials of adolescence don't stand a chance against the absurdity of grown-ups. Agent: Kim Witherspoon/InkWell Management

Kirkus Reviews