The Tiger at Midnight

The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala

Blogger struggle - for some reason I had to fight the formatting on this blog post a lot, so if something appears weird, it's because gremlins attacked this post and refused to leave my zeroes and ones alone.

Anywho.

Funny story behind this book for me; I ended up picking up a copy of this book from a famous book store in Denver, Colorado. I had been out that way for a training conference. I also didn't know if I had enough to read on the way back... so I bought like four books. This was one of them. Welcome to the impulse buy read! Whee!

An amazon summary, "Esha lost everything in the royal coup—and as the legendary rebel known as the Viper, she’s made the guilty pay. Now she’s been tasked with her most important mission to date: taking down the ruthless General Hotha.

Kunal has been a soldier since childhood. His uncle, the general, has ensured that Kunal never strays from the path—even as a part of Kunal longs to join the outside world, which has only been growing more volatile.

When Esha and Kunal’s paths cross one fated night, an impossible chain of events unfolds. Both the Viper and the soldier think they’re calling the shots, but they’re not the only players moving the pieces.

As the bonds that hold their land in order break down and the sins of the past meet the promise of a new future, both the soldier and the rebel must decide where their loyalties lie: with the lives they’ve killed to hold on to or with the love that’s made them dream of something more." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Esha is the Viper. She's a legendary assassin who, allegedly works alone, but in secret works for the rebel group known as the Blades. One night, she goes to the fort to assassinate the General, but discovers he's already dead and she's been framed. She steals the fake whip and leaves her own before she hears the general's last words and escapes into the night.

Meanwhile, Kunal is the nephew of the general. After his mother died, his uncle raised him in the fort and relentlessly trained him to be soldier to suppress or redirect his rage until it was gone.

Esha is desperate to get home to the rebels, but the Fort (over which the general presided) sends out four soldiers after her (Kunal being one of them). Kunal figures out pretty quickly that Esha is the viper, and the book quickly becomes a game of cat and mouse while they slowly learn more and more about each other.

That's enough summary.

So, for the book taking place in the heart of a worn torn area where there is drought and a number of other bad things, they sure spend an awful lot of time dwelling on the relationship between the two main characters. Because, apparently you can't have a YA book without people falling in love. *sarcastic eye roll*

Sass aside, I will say the world building was different. I feel like I got a glimpse of a culture, but not the entire picture. I felt like I got a glimpse of the region, the nature, and kind of the people who dwelled there. There was some cultural elements that seemed very well explained, and other elements that were just kind of glossed over.

But like whatever to all that BECAUSE IT TOOK LIKE FOUR MILLION BOOK YEARS TO FINISH THIS BOOK. I literally rage slept on this book every night until I finally finished it because I had to know how it ended. There were quite a few times where I was ready to just give up. So, the book is very slow. The book concentrates heavily on the two main characters confused feelings for each other, but not in a way that helps you explore or understand their feelings, just in a way that shuts you out of their past life until they're ready to have childhood flashbacks of trauma.

Overall, I didn't like the book. I really wanted to, to the point where I finished it, but I still couldn't like it. I think it's the first part of a trilogy, but like, ehhhhhh.

Happy reading!