Book Review: WHITE TIGER

White Tiger by Kylie Chan

White Tiger is the first book in the Dark Heavens Trilogy, detailing the adventures of Emma Donahoe. This book mixes the modern world with Chinese mythological gods and ancient martial arts, creating a story that in theory, should be very interesting, but in execution, is rather lacklustre.

White Tiger starts off with protagonist Emma as she takes on a full-time job as nanny to six-year-old Simone, the daughter of John Chen, a very wealthy Hong Kong businessman, after working for them part-time for the past half a year. Before long, she begins to notice things out of place about the family – Leo, whom she first thinks is the driver, turns out to be Simone’s bodyguard, and there is a room in the house full of weapons like staves, swords and the whole set. Not only that, there are people who come to the house for “training”, and she and the family are attacked several times by strange Chinese men. Soon, it is revealed to her that John Chen is actually a god, the second most powerful god in heaven after the Jade Emperor, and that the family has been under attack by demons for many years already. Emma swears her loyalty to John and begins learning martial arts to protect Simone, at the same time becoming attracted to John and vice versa.

White Tiger is, frankly, a rather frustrating book. Both protagonists are irritating and unlikeable. Emma Donahoe is supposedly a clever woman with an unusual penchant for martial arts. Despite this, she still manages to fall for almost every single trick the demons come up with. She manages to get herself cornered and threatened so many times that she seems more of a hindrance than a help, especially since she needs either Leo or Mr Chen to save her every time. Not only that, every time the demons group together to make a serious attack on the Chens, while the others like John or his fellow gods Bai Hu and Zhu Que are on the frontline fighting off the demons, Emma is relegated to protecting Simone on the sidelines – but she can’t even do that, as she ends up getting kidnapped by the demons at the end of the book. It’s frustrating how useless Emma seems to be, despite her supposed proficiency in the martial arts, and I really wish that she would be more useful and capable in the second book.

Mr John Chen, although not quite so useless, is equally frustrating. Despite being proclaimed as the second strongest god ever, he fails to defeat a minor demon prince, Simon Wong (the main antagonist), several times. It gets to the point that we start to wonder if he’s really as strong as the legends say, or if his abilities are just exaggerated. Plus, his character is never really fleshed out – up to this point I still can’t really state what his personality is like, only that he’s quiet and supposedly a strong and impressive god. He’s a male lead who is utterly boring to say the least.

The supporting characters, on the other hand, are a mixed bag. Simone Chen, John’s daughter, and the person that everyone is fighting to protect. Despite every other character in the book claiming that she is a cute little girl whom they must fight to the death to protect, she is in fact a whiny, irritating and immature six-year old girl who always wants things her way – for example, hitting her father when she finds out that he will leave, and ordering the other characters around to do her bidding. It gets to the point that the reader starts wondering why the other characters would want to protect such a brat in the first place.

The other supporting characters are more enjoyable – the White Tiger, Bai Hu, who is John’s friend and second-in-command, is an uncouth but fun-loving guy. He’s far more daring and wild than John is, and actually seems to get more things done than John does, especially when it comes to killing demons. The bodyguard Leo is also quite a fun character – he’s indulgent towards Simone and Emma, but ultimately is a loyal bodyguard who is more than willing to risk his life protecting John and Simone, to the point that he actually suffers life-threatening injuries throughout the book, narrowly avoiding death on a few occasions.

All in all, the Dark Heavens trilogy is a book which is sadly lacking, despite obvious potential for more fun and action.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

For ages 11 and above