Dane Huckelbridge

After reading the author’s note on GoodReads about writing this book as a new take on the literary fiction genre—one that’s still intelligent and character-driven but also accessible and adventurous and “fun-brow”—I’ve decided that that is what I really enjoyed about this book, one I read in a single sitting on a Sunday summer afternoon. It’s a mash-up of different styles and genres that created a completely engrossing read.

First and foremost, this is a story of survival. Barry, a former Wall Street finance guy with dreams of being an artist, and Sophie, a newly married French architect, wind up stranded together on a very tiny island in the South Pacific, offering nothing much but a reprieve from the tumult of an angry sea and a bunch of banana trees. While there’s quite a bit of adventure embedded in the plot, it’s also so much more than a survival story. In the beginning, for example, between these omniscient-narrator, documentary-style scenes of Barry and Sophie setting up survival camp, there are these little tendrils of information, these offshoot stories, a play on six-degrees of separation that are all interconnected to this small Polynesian island where these two have been plotted. I really enjoyed this style even though it tapered off once the marooned couple’s time on the island became the focus in contrast to the the hows and whys of their arrival.

I think this would be a good summer book club pick—or one to buddy-read because I keep wanting to talk about this story, especially the ending. So if you’re into lit fic AND survival stories, grab this book and prepare to experience so much more than the thrill of adventure. Just like the intense situation Barry and Sophie navigate, the emotions we experience right along with them are just as extreme.… (mere)

It was a good story overall, I give it three full stars. The actual tale of the story of the Champawat Tiger takes up maybe an eighth of this book. The majority of the book is filled in with facts and details of tigers, their locations, their physical makeup , their astounding nature, and the many tales of man-killing/eating tigers. Jim Corbett 's familial history, biography and the history of the Nepalese people and the Champawat region are what fills in the totality of the book.

The author, Dane Huckenbridge, does an ample job of writing and is clearly a good writer as what is written is done quite well. My big beef is that the whole focus of the title and for that matter the focus of the book is the Champawat tiger, which hardly gets any book space comparatively speaking. Where are the 436 victims? Where is the Champawat tiger? There has to be something out there in which to write about instead of writing around the antagonist, focusing only on the instant of demise instead of giving her (it was a female...no real spoiler there) life. I mean, here is an animal that Huckenbridge argues is the most prolific killer of humans of all time and we really get nothing but the end of the story.

Would I recommend this? I don't know. If I did I would have to note my complaint to those that are asking. Again, I am not saying that what is written was bad, I actually enjoyed what was in the book. I only have the one real complaint, but it is a big one...tiger sized.… (mere)