A flash of black, white, and orange flickers. Orange paws saunter around, and as a sliver of moonlight slips through the window, a tiger is revealed. How can a tiger be in the basement of your grandmother’s house, though? That’s what Lily wonders when she comes to her new home to live with her grandmother. You should definitely read this book, and this review will convince you why.
Lily, her sister, Sam, and their mom go to Sunbeam, the town the sisters’ grandmother lives in. What Sam sees in it is a drab, lousy town and an unfair way to separate her from her friends. However, Lily is eager and thrilled to see her halmoni, or grandmother! Lily ends up gazing at a tiger on the road, but somehow they drive through it…? Lily has several questions and can’t decide whether it was real or not. She starts seeing it again and again the more she is in Sunbeam, and it seems to be based on the tiger from the stories halmoni has told her. Halmoni has warned Lily of evil spirits and stories and that tigers are extremely dangerous, informing about her robbery of stories from them. It seems like Halmoni is getting sicker and sicker, Lily once gazing at her throwing up. Lily decides the tigers must want the stories and are doing this to Halmoni as payback. Hence, she decides to trap the tiger that she glanced at before.
Lily goes to the library to try to research about tigers and their weaknesses. There, she meets a girl named Jensen, a teenager who tutors at the library. A boy about Lily’s age, Ricky, is getting tutored there. That’s how she meets the person who can help solve her problems. Ricky’s grandfather was a tiger trapper, so she inferred Ricky could be an expert on it. They started hanging out and brainstorming to trap the tiger. Of course, Lily didn’t tell him that it was an actual tiger; instead, she told him it was a hypothetical tiger. Lily and Ricky build the trap, and Lily finds shining, glamorous “story” jars filled with 3 stories that could be the vile stories. The first night, she’ll wait for the tiger to come. But will it actually come? And if it does, will it help Lily save Halmoni? Read the book to find out!
I would rate this book 5 stars. It took me on an emotional rollercoaster, and it kept me questioning whether the tiger was real or not, just like Lily was. Ricky is my favorite character because of how energetic and silly he is. He lightens the whole story up and is an amazing friend for sure. I’d recommend this book to people who are ages 10 and above and love mystery and magical realism, which is depicting fantasy in a realistic fiction world. Hope you enjoy reading it!
Written by Kruti Patel
