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Although it came out in 2011, I read The Tiger’s Wife, the elegant first novel by Téa Obreht, only recently. I found it stunning, so perfectly moving on its many levels. Obreht’s protagonist and narrator, a young doctor named Natalia Stefanovic whose life is upended by the mysterious death of her beloved grandfather, is one of the most mellifluous, engrossing storytellers I’ve encountered in my life (she has learned well—her grandfather is one of the most mellifluous, engrossing storytellers she has encountered in hers). Her account remembers and aches for her loved one in a way that is both so poetic and relatable; she chiefly connects to his memory through a text, using his beloved copy of The Jungle Book to try to solve the puzzle around his last days, as well as his interior life. I also found The Tiger’s Wife to be very personal—Obreht was born in former Yugoslavia, and The Tiger’s Wife takes place in the Balkans, immediately after the war. My family, too, is from former Yugoslavia (where I spent much time, growing up), and though my life in America (and my age) has removed me from deeply experiencing the region’s turmoil firsthand, I marveled and cherished how Obreht’s book performs the acts of both collection and remembrance about the recent scarring and splintering of this region—this region which has historically been scarred and splintered so many times. (And it made me think of my own grandfather, another Yugoslavian storyteller, with whom I spent much of my childhood dreaming of animals.) “Collection and remembrance” are more than fluid themes of the novel, though—they comprise its methodology. Inspired by the format of The Jungle Book, perhaps, but also a culture that incorporates so many legends and beliefs (both Eastern and Western), Natalia begins interweaving fables and stories and flashbacks in her story—connecting an older, superstitious, and magical world and a bleak, modern, and disillusioned age. She does this as a device for the reader, but also because they keep unfurling in her own life as she learns her grandfather’s full story, and becomes, in a way, herself, inspired by the magic of it all. –Olivia Rutigliano, CrimeReads Editorial Fellow

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