I had to read this book for school and the whole class agreed with me that is was incredibly BORING. Nothing really interesting happens, u keep expecting something, but nothing. Then it stops at certain parts when it could easily go on and it gets annoying. I am also a person who enjoys reading books, but this one was just lame.

Reading this book was like eating meringue -- sweet, pleasurable, but in the final analysis - no substance.

Maybe I'm just too dense, but I didn't get "it". I couldn't identify, or even empathize witht he heroine. I couldn't appreciate the significance of what the things that happened to the heroine. I got the feeling that the lovely prose was supposed to set the stage, let us feel the strangeness and familiarity of the India our heroine was returning to -- but I missed it. It got close, but in the end, I was just confused and disappointed. I felt like the entire book was a build up for the "real" story...

I had to agree somewhat with the reviewer from Houston, TX, that The Tiger's Daughter is hard to understand in spots. However, having read Jasmine, I can follow her showing the reader the effects of moving from one culture to another. I think some sociologist has written of the "marginal man," that is the first-generation immigrant who is not at home in his new culture, but cannot comfortably return to the old one either.

Aside from this, I liked learning about Indian culture. I know nothing about the lifestyles of about a half billion people. Jasmine is easier reading, once you pick up on the succession of name changes for the main character, but I'd recommend either book if you want to get acquainted with some other-than-Western writers.

I think one of the main problems with this book might be Debbie/Devi herself. She is simply not likeable. She is smug, smarmy, ungrateful, self-absorbed, and luckier than she ever seems to comprehend. Aside from a few moments here and there, I had trouble feeling any real sympathy for her. I could not understand most of her motivations. Just like I could not understand this novel's plot. Mukherjee sets up all the players brilliantly...then lets them crash into each other haphazardly, leaving the reader confused and unsatisfied. The true climax of the book should be when Devi finally confronts her birth parents, but when that scene finally occurs everything just dissolves into a nonsensical bloodbath that doesn't particularly resolve anything. The only thing that keeps this book from being a waste of paper is the fascinating prose. I didn't like Devi, but I loved hearing her talk. Her voice is unique and distinctive, hip and dark and poetic. Even when she isn't making any sense, her strange little riffs on revenge and adoption and forces of nature are a pleasure to read.

Bought it cheap from a bargain book table, read it fast and regretted almost every minute. If you like language for its own sake, you might like this novel because there are some awfully pretty and interesting turns of phrase. But if you actually read because you like reading an interesting, well-told story about characters that at some level seem human, skip this book. It's worse than a violent pulp novel, because at least those types of books make you work to reach the end of your bad story. Reading this felt like hard labor, and I'm not even sure how it ended after reading the ending twice.

When I first picked up this slim 239-page trade paperback novel I was intrigued. The voice is that of a 23-year old modern young woman with a sharp irreverent mind. She was adopted at the age of two from an orphanage in India and brought up in Schenectady, NY. Her birth mother was an American hippie, her birth father was a Eurasian serial killer. She goes to the Bay Area in California in search to try to find out her true identity.

However, this story is more than a simple tale. It takes the myth of Electra, blends it with the myth of the Goddess Devi, adds weird and outrageous violence, and takes the reader on a roller coaster ride. This is not a realistic book in any way. Told against the backdrop of the hippie and Vietnam veteran legacy, and the lifestyle of Berkley, California, the voice is sharp and probing. The words are sometimes as violent as the action. There isn't one sympathetic character in the book. Many die in terrible ways. The coincidences are too strange, the violence too intrusive, and the murder and mayhem too shocking.

The story haunts on many levels though and emerges as a small work of art even though it is upsetting and unpleasant to read. There is a long interview with the author at the end of the book. Also a teaching guide. I think they were necessary and even more interesting than the book. The author was brought up in an upper class family in India, came to America in the 60s, has a Ph.D. in English and even though the voice she writes in seems simple, there are many complexities underneath.

I can't recommend this book but I'm glad I read it.