Monthly Archives: April 2014

Tiger Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

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This book came highly recommended to me by a family member. “You must read this,” she said, “it’s so good. I couldn’t put it tiger tigerdown.” That said, I still resisted the book for several months because of the subject matter.

Tiger Tiger is Margaux Fragoso’s memoir documenting her childhood years when she fell prey to a pedophile. While disturbing, I too found the book very compelling and read it in a single weekend. However it wasn’t the subject matter that held me. The book was so well done I just had to finish it.

I think we can all agree that child molesters are the worst brand of evil and Peter Curran was one of the most insidious of his kind. He first met Fragoso at the neighborhood community pool when she was aged seven. Because she already had an unhappy home life and was starved for affection, Fragoso was immediately drawn to Curran’s attention as he carefully manipulated his way into her family dynamic, slowly sneaking the abuse in under the very nose of Fragoso’s mentally ill mother and alcoholic father.

Fragoso’s childhood coping mechanisms of storytelling and withdrawing into her own made up fantasy world shed light on how she was able to write so beautifully later on. I can best describe her style as…healthy. The level of acceptantance with which she tells her real life story actually made it easy for me to take. She began the book in her early twenties, shortly after Curran died, but did not finish it until several years later. My guess is she went through many years of healing and while I would certainly read anything else from her in the future I would be most interested in her story of recovery.

While I did enjoy this book I feel funny about recommending it to anyone. The few people I discussed it with immediately dismissed the book due to its subject matter which is perfectly understandable. However, if you are willing to give it a try you may be surprised as I was to find that Tiger Tiger is not a story evil but rather hope.

Abandon by Meg Cabot

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I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. I finally came across a book, a whole series actually, by Meg Cabot that I really don’tAbandon Meg Cabot like. Abandon, which is based on the myth of Persephone the Greek Goddess of the Underworld, just didn’t do it for me.

The story centers around Pierce Oliviera, a teenage girl who has a near death experience. The book loosely covers the following two years through flashbacks, which was my first problem: too much jumping around. Normally I don’t mind flashbacks in a book. They are an important tool to add structure and interest to a story. Unfortunately the flashbacks in Abandon seemed oddly placed to me. Add this to the fact that I took two whole weeks to read the book (my problem) and I had a difficult time keeping track.

My second problem had to do with the tone of the book. I was interested to see how Cabot treated the dark subject matter of death and the Underworld. She has done dark before in Jinx and The Mediator series which I enjoyed very much. However what made these previous books work were the heroines who faced the dark subject matters of danger and death head on with feisty determination. Unfortunately Pierce Oliviera did not embody the typical “Meg Caboty” spunk and her attempts at perky humor just fell flat.

Given Pierce’s situation I guess I can’t blame her. The poor girl did die, visit the Underworld and then came back to life which sounds pretty traumatizing. Not only that but the next two years are fraught with creepy and dangerous experiences that she narrowly escapes thanks to John, the mysterious guy she met in The Underworld, who may or may not be into her. That said, I still had a hard time feeling sympathetic for Pierce. She came off as too victimized for me.

In loyalty to Meg Cabot I am planning to finish the series. In fact I have already read book 2, Underworld, which I did find a little better. Full review is pending.

If you are interested in Greek mythology, particularly the myth of Persephone, I highly recommend these books. Also a bit of practical advice: read the books in large chunks of time so you don’t get lost in all the flashbacks.