I wanted to love The Tiger Saga so much. I own every single book in the series but I think I'll be stopping at TIGER'S CURSE. This book was so disappointing, it had a great premise but all of that was ruined in the execution. 
 One of my main problems (I had a lot of them) was with the main character Kelsey. She felt like every other YA protagonist out there who gets picked as the chosen one to go on a magical quest. Bland. Overused. Predictable. 
 I never connected with her, probably because I wouldn't travel the world alone with a strange older man and dangerous animal that could kill you, nor do I have the desire to. She's definitely not personable, and she doesn't really have any traits besides that she trusts people too easily and can be extremely annoying 
 "The charitable thing to do would be to make myself as homely looking as possible, which would probably make it much easier on him, but I didn't want his parting memories of me to be that I was a frumpy mess dressed in tomboy clothes. I do have some feminine pride after all. I still want him to squirm. At least a little." 
 Still, she is tolerable until she falls head over heels in love with tiger boy number one (there's two, did you expect this not to have a love triangle?) which starts an endless cycle of back and forth where she pushes him away and is a total shrew to him, only to kiss him and encourage him two pages later. 
 "But it won't work out." I finished. There, it was out. 
 Ren looked confused. "Why not?" 
 "Because I'm too attracted to you." 
 "I don't understand what you are saying. How can your being attracted to me be a problem? I would think that's a good thing." 
 "For normal people... it is," I stated. 
 "So I'm not normal?" 
 "No. Let me explain it this way. It's like this... a starving man would gladly eat a radish, right? In fact, a radish would be a feast if that's all he had. But if he had a buffet in front of him, the radish would never be chosen." 
 Ren paused for a moment. "I don't get it. What are you saying?" 
 "I'm saying...I'm the radish." 
 "And what am I? The buffet?" 
 I tried to explain it further. "No...you're the man. Now...I don't really want to be the radish. I mean, who does? But I'm grounded enough to know what I am, and I am not a buffet. I mean, you could be having chocolate eclairs for heaven's sake." 
 "But not radishes." 
 "No." 
 Tiger boy one and two are definitely no prize either, their behavior is creepy and a little obsessive, and the romance is fairly close to insta-love. Prepare for cheesy eye-rolling scenes and terrible sexual innuendos that will make you cringe. 
 I do have to give props for the research the author probably put into the novel, but it was kind of overkill. These sections are unbearably tedious and long yet still manage to not be descriptive or informational. I would have rather had time dedicated to fleshing out characters and actually developing the romance. 
 And how can someone smell like a waterfall and a warm summer day? Fish and sweat? 
 Not for me.