Lady or the Tiger

I'm a serious fan of Western stories. This one is a unique storyline with a Western background. Alice Springer is a young woman whose arranged marriage sentences her to life with an abusive husband who views her as property. During this era, it was not unusual in Kentucky for women to be bartered into a marriage with no thought of their wishes. When Alice decides she's had enough, she murders her husband and runs from the consequences. Alice moves west and becomes Belle King, a woman who would never be abused again. Heather Herrman does an excellent job of detailing Alice's transformation into Belle and the drastic changes she had to make to be able to control her own life. She seamlessly changes from Kentucky's civilized communities to the wilder lawlessness in which Belle thrives. She builds a life full of adventure and danger until at 19, she plans a daring power play that will either kill her or ultimately free her from her history. This blend of history, fiction, and westerns is an excellent example of building a unique character and story.

This is the story of Belle King, who is wanted for murder and just recently turned herself in. Belle is ready to face the consequences. But Belle isn’t ready for is to see her abusive husband Reginald outside of her jail cell. She has done a lot to get away from Reginald even going so far as to kill him or so she thought. Belle would rather die than to be back with Reginald but it’s the 1800s and she may not even be believed about the crimes she committed. Why? After all, she confessed.The author includes a flashback to Belle’s mother’s tragic murder shows how the stage was set for Belle’s desperate marriage to Reginald. It was her way of escaping the trauma of being involuntarily committed to the Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum after she was left alone in the world. There is a sophisticated exploration of the impact of men’s abuse of power which is chilling. Belle’s individual strength and continued resistance proves inspirational. The nonlinear timeline enhances the larger-than-life vignettes that are reminiscent of tall tales, maintaining a quick pace and adding tension to each dramatic beat. Untrustworthy news sources share misinformation, and issues like abortion, animal cruelty, and violence against women are handled realistically and compassionately. This book is a great read about a woman in the Wild West.Disclaimer: I received an arc of this book from the author/publisher from Netgalley. I wasn’t obligated to write a favorable review. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.

Wow.....Just wow. I opened this book expecting an unforgiving western setting & a girl just trying to survive in it & I left with a sense of contentment, of proudness for this woman with a tiger in her heart. This is a book about the injustices & oppression of women, in the 1880s & now, about justified female rage, of fighting not just for those you love but also fighting to keep yourself. I feel like there’s a Belle King in all of us women (though maybe don’t do everything she did.....unless you absolutely have to). Lady or the Tiger is so much more than I thought it would be. It’s a love story, a love story about loving all the beautiful, wonderfully jagged pieces of yourself. Lady or the Tiger, yes, but a lady can also BE a tiger if that’s what it takes.

Lady or the Tiger was about a young girl surviving in the American wild west and trying to come into her own. Told, mostly, all from her point-of-view with numerous back and forth time jumps, readers travel with her from the beginning at fifteen years old forced to kill a man to nineteen years old and about to be hung as the Seamstress, a serial killer. This was tagged as young adult but I'd go more new adult, there's nothing completely explicit with the sex and violence but with a first husband who is a sadist in the bedroom, I often felt the messaging of don't give up being yourself for men was stylistically written more for adult thinking; I'm a big Judy Blume fan and I couldn't help comparing the two. The “supporting women's wrongs” with claiming fierce feminism when our lead Alice/Belle lures men with her physical wiles to murder them, just wasn't groundbreaking or entertaining for me, your mileage may vary.Alice gets sent to an asylum after she murders a man and her mother is killed. From there she is forced to marry Reginald, a cop, as a means of escape. She becomes useful to him by helping him cheat while gambling and they travel the west and Europe but he's the sadist in the bedroom and when Alice locks eyes with a boy in Texas, they spend a night together and escape Reginald. Alice then becomes Belle and travels the west and Europe with the carnival of The Damned, falling in love with Cal, the Texas boy, and taming a tiger to dance with. One night things unravel and Belle runs while Cal saves her from a dire situation, but eventually at nineteen Belle turns herself in for the Seamstress murders and wants to be hung because she thinks/knows she's done wrong. Her plan gets ruined when Reginald shows up and says she's crazy, citing the asylum stay, and tries to save her.Like I said, the timeline is cut and spliced wildly, Alice/Belle starts off ready to be hung, then you'll go from how she escaped Reginald, her murderous time as the Seamstress, time with Cal, how she married Reginald, and the time at the asylum. There's some unreliable narration going on and an ending that takes a page from the short story it's title is inspired by (The Lady or the Tiger). If you can handle non-linear stories, telling you feminism is simply doing what you want, cool real women historical figures shout-outs, a good message (lost in the story for me most the time) of don't change yourself for love or chance at it, and an open-ended ambiguous ending, then this was something different along those lines.I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Lady or the Tiger was so unexpected but also blew my expectations out of the water. From the very first sentence, I knew this book was going to be special and unlike anything I’ve read. I couldn’t put it down.This was so beautifully and artfully written. I’ve never felt the desire to annotate a book like I did while reading this. There were so many lines that were so deep and moving, capturing life and love and the essence of feminine rage in the most glorious ways.This was also so twisty. There were several times the story smacked me in the face and left me speechless and reeling. Times I felt the need to go back and reread whole chapters in new lights and connect pieces I had completely missed.I will say the time traveling between chapters sometimes got confusing, but I still think it was overall well done. I also adore when titles of books directly tie into the story and this was definitely the case here. The quality of writing in this book was stunning. I hated the ending but think it was perfect. This was the most unique and wonderful book I’ve read this year and truly hope everyone else that reads it experiences the same awe I did.