Tiger, Tiger

I’ll admit: I had to pause *Tiger, Tiger* more than once. Not because it’s poorly done—quite the opposite—but because Fragoso’s memoir demands you *sit with* the discomfort. The audiobook’s power lies in how it mirrors the grooming process itself: the early chapters lull you with the mundane (ice cream trips, pet tigers, a man who *gets* her), only to tighten like a noose as the years progress. Bennett’s narration is a revelation—she doesn’t *act* the child Margaux; she *is* her, with a disarming lack of inflection that makes the horror hit harder. When she reads Curran’s letters aloud, her voice takes on a cloying warmth that’s somehow more disturbing than outright menace. That said, the pacing stumbles in the middle. Fragoso’s adult reflections sometimes interrupt the narrative flow, and a few repetitive scenes (another pool visit, another "special" outing) could’ve been tightened. But these are quibbles. The real gut-punch comes in the final act, where Fragoso confronts the adult she became—a woman still tangled in the myth of her abuser’s "love." The production choices amplify this: the lack of background music forces you to hear every swallowed sob, every defensive laugh. It’s not a memoir about healing; it’s about the scars we mistake for identity. If you’re looking for catharsis, look elsewhere. But if you want to understand how abuse rewires a mind? This audiobook will haunt you long after the last chapter.