I found "Tale of the Tigers" truly fascinating, to be honest. I normally don't have much time to read for leisure any more, but I lost a good amount of sleep staying up too late over several nights to finish this, not wanting to put it down. The book is well-written and an easy read: character development is solid, story line is smooth, and transitions are logical.
This will perhaps put me in a bad light, but as I've grown older, maybe I've gotten myself into a bubble of ignorance over the years; I honestly didn't think race relations -- including inter-racial dating -- were still at the level of acrimony portrayed here. I remember as a young teenager growing up in Florida (not as bad as Alabama, Mississippi, et al, but still "the South"), one of my first "non-platonic" love interests was a black girl who lived nearby in our almost all-white apartment complex. The looks, comments, and general vitriol I got -- from both kids and adults (including my dad once he found out) -- as I awkwardly pursued the young lady surprised me even then. I simply didn't get it. Ms. Ochieng's novel brought a lot of those memories back, placing it into today's world and making me feel that we as a society are no more advanced in race relations than we were 35 years ago, deep down.
Ms. Ochieng's novel talks about things that perhaps we're afraid to talk about. It will make you think, re-evaluate those feelings that you may have that you don't say out loud. Now that I'm thinking about these things, I have to wonder if we'll ever be able to get past physical differences. Having worked in emergency services now for a lot of years, I can promise that everyone's blood is red, everyone's organs all look the same and are in the same place; the only difference between us, really, is on the outside. Maybe part of me is still 14 years old and innocent, but I still simply don't get it.
This was a great book; I enjoyed it immensely and would love to read more by this author.
