Book Review: Tuschka by Astrid M. van Ginneken

 

   

Note: This book isn't available in English (yet).

I practically never read sea life xenofiction because, well, quite frankly, I'm just generally not that interested in it. I'm a general animal lover don't get me wong but stuff like fish, marine mammals, corals, etc. just don't really interest me that much and never have. But when I saw this book up for grabs for cheap at the local bookstore I did want to give it a read. Xenofiction is xenofiction.

Spoilers ahead.

Based somewhat on real events, this book tells the story of a young orca named Tuschka. She is born in the wild and grows up in her pod, where she experiences many joys but also hardships. When one day she is captured by humans and taken to a sea park, a whole new life for her begins. She manages to befriend her human trainers at the park, but at the same time it isn't her home and she longs for her family. Will she ever get home?

It was an interesting enough concept for a book, taking the life of a real orca and basing a story around it. No, Tuschka herself never existed, but she is based on a real orca named Gudrun though with a lot of elements of her story added. Also, despite the author claiming it wasn't inspired by the movie, add some Free Willie into the mix as well, because the last third of the book is about the efforts to free Tuschka and reunite her with her wild family.

However, while an interesting concept, the execution felt a bit flat to me. The characters especially I wasn't sold on, specifically Tuschka herself. She is an animal protagonist who does not talk (like Buck from The Call of the Wild), however it can be tricky to write a character with an actual personality in this style. Buck, for example, while a non-talking animal, still has a clear personality and arc he goes through. 

This is not the case of Tuschka. She is a pretty bland and static animal character. She loves her family and trainers and calf but that's her main traits. There's not a lot of actual character or personality to be found. Which, for your leading role, is a problem. The side characters aren't amazing, either, but a bland main character just isn't enjoyable to read. Half of the time I was disinterested in what was happening to Tuschka because I didn't care for her as a character. 

There's also an issue of this book having sometimes ridiculously long single paragraphs that just go on and on. Worse yet, sometimes the character POV will switch mid-paragraph. This book has a third person limited narrator per paragraph or chapter. So, while through the eyes of various characters as a whole, each chapter or sometimes paragraph will focus and be seen through the eyes of one of them. In most cases this is Tuschka herself, but there's also several other POV characters such as her trainers or boatsmen she comes across. And the book will mostly stick to this type of POV...except when it doesn't and it chooses to switch within a paragraph, which of course has very distracting results. 

The story itself is also pretty much predictable with not a lot of twists and turns along the way. The moment I figured out Tuschka was going to get captured I knew this book was going the Free Willy-direction of "free the orcas". And it went exactly that route with not too many surprises along the way.

Overall this is an okay book and I think maybe sea life lovers would get a real kick out of it, but it wasn't for me personally. I could not get into the bland characters and predictable plot.

Rating: 3/5