Book Review: Tiger Hills

Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna
Publisher: Pintail
Paperback Release Date: August 28, 2012
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Description:

The year is 1878, the year a beautiful baby girl, Devi, is born. Her fate is intertwined with Devanna, a gifted young boy whose mother has died in tragic circumstances. The two quickly become inseparable, until Devi meets Machu the tiger killer, a hunter of great repute. It is the tangled relationship between the three that leads to a devastating tragedy—an event with unforeseen and far-reaching consequences for generations to come.

Tiger Hills is an epic novel that spans most of Devi’s lifetime. Devi, Devanna, and Machu are all layered, multi-dimensional characters. They are flawed but heartbreakingly sympathetic, each in their own way. Ms. Mandanna even spends quite a bit of time building out the secondary characters like Nanju and Appu as well. Even if I didn’t agree with an action one of the characters took, I knew exactly why they would do such a thing because the author paid so much attention to each character’s development. (I don’t want to get into specifics and spoil the story!) I especially loved Devi and her strength in a time period when it was hard for women in India to do much of anything on their own.

I also loved reading about the traditions of the time and region. I love reading Victorian novels with all of the strict etiquette that characters must operate within. I enjoyed this book for the same reason – life was very ritualized; it was just a different set of rules. Since Tiger Hills spans such a lengthy period of time, society evolves and changes. The author does a nice job of bringing in the real-life historical events that were happening and showing the reader how these events affected the families in this book and India as a whole.

I loved this book – it’s hard to believe that it’s Sarita’s Mandanna’s first novel. It was longlisted for the 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize, which is not hard to believe. I can’t wait to see what Mandanna comes out with next.

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(I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher.)