This book was beautifully written and seamlessly incorporated three distinct stories into one coherent novel that centered around the themes of life and death, and the conflicts between them. I felt that the stories of the deathless man, the tiger's wife, and Natalia's time at the orphanage each had their own distinct style and in the end painted a picture of Natalia's grandfather's concept of death. I will admit that my perception and understanding of Natalia's grandfather was vague. I felt that this character was missing something, and I would have enjoyed a more human, intimate development of Natalia's grandfather so that I could have understood him better. I felt that instead of depicting the grandfather as a concrete, dynamic human, Obreht depicted him as a conceptual character that was used to express the feelings many have towards the thought of death, such as fear (the villager's fear of the tiger), hope (the grandfather's relationship with the deathless man), and superstition (Dure's hunt for his family member's body). I may be totally off the mark here, but that's what I got out of the story. All in all, I really enjoyed this book and Obreht's style of writing and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting quick read.