ARC Review: Tigers on the Beach

Tigers on the Beach by Doug Macleoud
Published by Penguin Books Australia
Format Reviewed: Paperback 
Publication Date: 1st March 2014
Genre: YA Contemporary
Pages: 251
Reviewed by: Eugenia
My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars 
Buy It

Have you heard the one about the guy who lost a grandfather, but found a girlfriend? It's funny. It's also kind of sad. And some of the bits that are sad are also kind of funny (but only if you laugh at that sort of thing). 

 Adam thinks Samantha could be the one for him. But first he has to sort out his parents' crumbling marriage, stop getting into embarrassing situations involving public nudity, find out what's making his gran so angry, stop his little brother doing something really, really dangerous and work out what's so funny about two tigers on a beach. It can't be that hard, can it?

A novel about how comedy unites and divides us, from the award-winning author of The Shiny Guys and The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher

Thank you to Penguin Books Australia for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest 
review

After finishing Tigers on the Beach I've got some mixed emotions. I've never read any of the author's previous books, so I have nothing to compare this to, but from what I gather it was meant to have some comedy. Although I got some of this in the novel, and it was able to deal with some deeper topics with a funny twist, in the end it just didn't reach its full potential for my liking. While the plot and family relationships were explored well, the little bit of romance that there was felt forced and out of place. However, after finishing this, I can see what the author was trying to achieve in writing this book, and I may try again reading one of his other books written in the same style to see how that compares.

What I liked:

The family dynamics

One of the aspects of this book which was well-executed in my opinion were the relationships that Adam had with the people in his family and how they interacted with each other. Here, the comedy worked well, making the book easy to read with a direct writing style and some quirky jokes that you may (or may not) find funny. He acted like you would expect a 13 year-old boy would, and the relationship which he had with his grandfather was nice to read about.


The Jokes

Specifically, I can't say that there was a lot of 'LOL's going on when I was reading this, but some of the dialogue was still pretty witty. Some of the jokes throughout the novel were a bit on the quirky side, which gave this book its unique charm, and although you might not get the punchline, they still served a purpose.

Room for Improvement

The Characters/Romance...

I think one of the negative points about having a book full of comedy and sarcasm is that it did take away from the character development quite a bit. While I didn't expect this book to be 'deep and meaningful' in the most obvious way, I would really have liked to learn more about the characters - especially Adam's 'love interest' Sam. I understand that he is still just a young teen, but even the way that he talked to her at times seemed unrealistic. At times I thought Sam was made out of cardboard. We didn't really get to know her properly as readers, and so I couldn't understand the mega insta-love fest that happened between those two. Their relationship seemed forced and I wasn't feeling it. Perhaps if they were both invested in more as characters and portrayed more realistically it could have worked for me, but this point is the main downfall that brought my rating down.

*CONCLUSION*

In conclusion, even though there were some funny and quirky moments in Tigers on the Beach the lack of characterisation didn't work for me. That being said, it was an experience to read something comedic for a change and I might still look into Doug MacLeoud's other works to see how they stack up against this one.