Tiger's Voyage by Colleen Houck

The Synopsis:
With the head-to-head battle against the villainous Lokesh behind her, Kelsey confronts a new heartbreak: in the wake of his traumatic experience, her beloved Ren no longer remembers who she is. As the trio continues their quest by challenging five cunning and duplicitous dragons, Ren and Kishan once more vie for her affections--leaving Kelsey more confused than ever.














My Thoughts:
Alright, guys.  This is the last of the Houck books I'll be reviewing for a while now.  Honestly, I've never felt like this before where I really enjoyed the books, but the reviews are the same with the same problems and the reviewing task of my job just become arduous.  I've contemplated reviewing Tiger's Quest and Voyage or not because THEY ARE THE SAME.  While completely different with different adventures and characters and overall conflicts, underneath all that busyness are the same nagging problems that bother me.  SAME.  NAGGING.  PROBLEMS.

Kelsey, why do I want to strangle you so?  Get over this 'I'm ugly' nonsense because you wouldn't have TWO AMAZINGLY SMOKING HOT THREE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD PRINCES wanting to get acquainted with your lips.  Because of this odd mindset that has been going on for THREE LONG BOOKS, you've become an extremely unlikable and flat character in my mind.  I've no attachment to you whatsoever.  I gave you a chance in the first book, figuring you'd come to change throughout the saga.  I became a little bothered how you've not changed in the second book at all.  But now it's the end of the third book and I'm ready to kick your butt to the curb.  You would have been a great and inspirational character to the YA genre if you weren't such a numskull.

And with the end of the third book, I've come to notice, that while the writing has greatly improved, the imagery is almost nonexistent.  Being that I've never been to India and went inside the Shore Temple, I have no idea how to picture the world Houck has brought readers to.  It is imperative that, when an author writes a book that takes place in an entirely different country than most of the demographic, the imagery has to be off the charts.  I assume that India is scorching hot.  But, never once does Kelsey complain about how hot India can get.  I mean, she goes from freezing Oregon to tropical India.  I better have at least a few clues that she is a little bit uncomfortable in this new country. 

This is what the Shore Temple looks like.  My mind did not conjure a somewhat similar image.



And Ren?  Seriously?  Memory loss?  After he came back, the cause of the problem was obvious to me and it bothered me how none of the other characters saw how predictable it was.  And Kishan?  Step back, man.  Step back.  You are deep in dangerous Team Ren territory.

That being said, I might as well mention that I greatly did enjoy this book.  I greatly enjoy the series.  But once these nagging problems stay constant throughout a number of books, they become hard to ignore and make me a little ticked off.  The adventure in this book was outstanding.  Being that I love and live right next to the ocean, I enjoyed being taken on this aquatic adventure that led me all the way to the abysmal depths of the ocean.  Jellyfish!  I was so happy to see them cuties included in the story.

And once again, while my review may seem like I am totally bashing the book to bits and pieces, I have to mention that I loved the book.  It's more of the action and adventure and Indian mythology/prophecy thing that sucked me in.  I can see why people have dropped the book--I just named all the reasons above--and maybe I'm being masochistic, but I will finish the series and hope that something good, at least, comes from all of those pesky problems.