Title: Tigers, Not Daughters
Author: Samantha Mabry
Pub. Date: 24 Mar 2020
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Book Synopsis:
The Torres sisters dream of escape. Escape from their needy and despotic widowed father, and from their San Antonio neighborhood, full of old San Antonio families and all the traditions and expectations that go along with them. In the summer after her senior year of high school, Ana, the oldest sister, falls to her death from her bedroom window. A year later, her three younger sisters, Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa, are still consumed by grief and haunted by their sister’s memory. Their dream of leaving Southtown now seems out of reach. But then strange things start happening around the house: mysterious laughter, mysterious shadows, mysterious writing on the walls. The sisters begin to wonder if Ana really is haunting them, trying to send them a message—and what exactly she’s trying to say.
(Goodreads, 2020)
Book Review:
A strong story about sisterly love that lost their way after they lost one of them. They grow apart and drown in they own problems. In the first part of the book we can get to know them separately. Jessica cannot accept that her favorite big sister is gone, she feels angry all the time and tries to live the life her sister lived. She takes her room, wears her clothes, even starts dating her ex-boyfriend just to feel closer to her sister. Iridian is a strange character. She seems to be far away from the reality. She lives in her own world of words and doesn’t leave her house even if she seems to hate it. Rosa is a soft and nature loving person who spends most of the time to look for answers. Their lives go on until the ghost of their lost sister appears in their house. She makes their life even harder than it is and they cannot understand what the message is she tries to send her.
The book is very dark, so it leaves goosebumps on your skin while reading it. It contains a subject like abuse behavior, deep depression and addictions. The book would be very boring if it wouldn’t contain the part of the haunted house. However, the part that was the best in the books was how special were all the sisters. They saw the world in completely other way than most people do. I think that the book was mostly led by Jessica and we didn’t get to know Iridian and Rosa as much as her, but the author gave us enough to understand their personalities and part of the story.
The ending of the book was unexpected and amazing. I feel like an author was leading us into thinking that together with the story lives of girls will be more and more miserable but thankfully the plot changed and gave them what they really deserved.
In the book we met two characters that were destroying Torres sisters’ lives: their father and Josh (Jessica’s boyfriend). Sometimes I felt bad for their father because it must be so hard to lose a wife and then also a daughter but as the book goes, I understood that he was one of the villains in the book. The way he treated his daughters and ruined their lives was unacceptable, but the worst thing that really moved me was the way he treated Iridian. However, Josh isn’t any better. He’s abusing and controlling Jessica every time he gets close to her. I couldn’t understand how she could just stand and let him do what he wanted with her. I think that it’s the part that shows how deep depressed she was that she didn’t even care what is happening to her.
Thankfully, beside all of this we also meet a character that brings hope to our hearts. Peter’s is a guy that works with Jessica at pharmacy. He’s clearly trying to help her to get through all of what happens in her life from the beginning and she also sees it. Peter is a sweet boy that wants to be a superhero that will save a girl that he’s in love with. Even if at the beginning he can’t even make her to talk with him, they become much closer with the time Jessica realizes that it’s the time to change the way she lives.
Rate: ⭐️⭐️⭐️, 5
I would like to thank Netgalley, Algonquin Young Readers and Algonquin Young Readers for providing me copy of this book.
cafeyre 