The Last Tiger by Julia and Brad Riew Weaves History and Folklore in a Beautiful Tapestry

GENRE: YA Fantasy

LENGTH: 395 pages

PLOT

Seung and Eunji come from very different backgrounds yet both seek the same thing – freedom -  Seung from his family’s poverty and Eunji from her forced marriage. The two befriend each other and fall in love. Things become complicated when they discover the last tiger and find themselves on opposing sides.

CHARACTERS

            Seung and Eunji come from different worlds. Seung’s family is extremely poor, while Eunji’s family is in the wealthy class known as yangbans. Seung works for Eunji’s family which is how they come to meet. They start out as friends but develop romantic feelings for each other. Their relationship is based on the authors’ grandparents’ love story, which is what makes it ironic that I didn’t feel like their characters had any romantic chemistry. I can buy their friendship, but not them as a romantic pairing.

            Eunji, in my opinion, has more chemistry with Kenzo, who is a member of a powerful family from the Dragon Empire (more on that in the next section). Kenzo starts out as a very unlikable character, but he later makes noble choices. It isn’t really clear if his actions are a result of him changing his allegiance or merely his feelings for Eunji, though.

            Jin is the resistance leader who recruits Seung. She is resilient, strong willed, and fierce. Her story line sadly feels incomplete.

            Nari is a side character who is the leader of the Tiger Slayers, which is a team within the Dragon army. I mention her here because she has a prosthetic yet she’s still highly respected and powerful. I thought it was so cool to see a character with a disability portrayed in such a strong manner.

WRITING

            The novel is told from the alternating perspectives of Seung and Eunji. I thought going in that it was going to be a romantasy, but it really isn’t. 

The novel isn’t directly historical because it’s set in a fantasy setting/alternate world, but it is based on the Japanese occupation of Korea. The Tiger Colonies are a stand-in for Korea and the Dragon Empire for Japan. I will confess that this isn’t a time in history I was super familiar with, but this book made me want to learn more. After doing a little bit of research, I can easily see the parts of the book’s world that match up to the real life history. I also learned that tigers are an important part of Korean folklore. This story does a very good job of blending Korean folklore and history.

The novel starts out pretty light fantasy, but the magical elements become more prominent as the story progresses. The magic system is very easy to understand. This book is a standalone and with the exception of Jin’s character, it had good pacing and everything wrapped up nicely.

My favorite quote from the novel is: “I understand that there’s more than one type of cage. That the worst one of all is the one you place yourself in.” (page 385). To me, this story is really all about Seung and Eunji finding their own keys and unlocking their cages.

Trigger warnings for: child loss, mentions of rape, physical violence, child abuse, panic attacks, and suicidal ideation.

FINAL THOUGHTS

There was a lot I really liked about this book. As I mentioned above, it does a wonderful job of weaving together folklore and history in a way that actually made me want to learn more about its inspirations. The characters as individuals are all very strong and well written. I just wish Seung and Eunji had more romantic chemistry. Maybe it was because it was written by siblings and it was awkward for them to write romantic scenes? The novel does include a few notes/quotes from their grandparents, and I personally would have liked to have had more of those inserted.

FINAL RATING: 4.25 ⭐️