Book Rant: Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck

Ooh boy, this one's a doozy. Strap in, folks.

Tiger’s Curse

by Colleen Houck

0.5 Stars

Y’all wanted a White Savior narrative? Well, step right up!

This 400-page clunker follows Kelsey, a white teenager who starts working at a circus and grows a borderline beastiality level of affection for the circus’s white tiger, Ren. Then a filthy rich Indian man shows up, buys Ren, and makes Kelsey an offer she shouldn’t accept: be the tiger’s companion in India for the summer. No passport or immunization shots required!

You’d think this would lead Kelsey’s adoptive parents to clock this for the human trafficking scam that it clearly is, but nope! Have fun, Kels!

Upon arriving in India, Kelsey discovers the reason for her travel is a lie. (I’m sure you’re all shocked.) You see, Ren is actually a hot Indian prince, cursed to be a tiger, and because Kelsey is She Who Walks With Tigers (i.e. has that White Girl Magic), she’s made it so that he can be human for 24 minutes a day. [Which is way too small a time for these two to meaningfully bond AS HUMANS, but go off, Colleen!]  Also, due to Kelsey’s White Girl Magic, she’s the only one who can help Ren find the Four Magical Indian Macguffins to break the curse for real. Also, there’s a big bad who wants the macguffins, too. But don’t worry about him. Seriously, don’t. He’s in two chapters and never interacts with Kelsey. What tension!

And if that’s not enough cursed 2010s YA tropes for you, there’s a love triangle! You see, Ren has a younger, hotter, more charismatic brother, Kishan, who is a black tiger, in case you weren’t sure who the bad boy is. But he also finds Kelsey’s White Girl Magic like catnip (no pun intended), so he and Ren get to fight over the white girl for several hundred pages. Great.

I LOATHED this book. Despised it. The plot is paper thin. [Spoilers: they only get the first of the Four Magical Indian Macguffins and then Kelsey goes home!] I’ve had tap water with more flavor than these characters. The bestiality undertones are weird and unwelcome. But the worst part of this book is the racism. This is the whitest White Gaze to ever White Gaze. There is a scene where Ren and Kishan are hunting while Kelsey watches, and the way the hunt and the kill are described belongs in a dissertation on racial fetishization. It’s disgusting. 

Colleen Houck didn’t write this for Indian people. She wrote this for white girls to fetishize Indian men—heck, India in general—and ignore that they’re living, complex, and real.

The fact that she’s still writing this series is an absolute disgrace. Do not read this.