One Tiger One Teen

Content Overview

Overall Content
Severity
3.8

Language

8.9/10

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

0.4/10

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

6.0/10

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

3.5/10

Potentially Intense Themes

0.4/10

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

One Tiger One Teen

Pete Peterson

“We’d put a circus tiger in a horse trailer and when its sedative wore off it turned into a real tiger.” Kip Kellogg’s not kidding.

It’s two weeks before the start of his senior year of high school and releasing a live tiger in the halls was supposed to be the teenager’s ultimate senior class prank.

Things had been going so great, because capturing a live tiger does wonders for a young man’s confidence. His newfound boldness has him skirting around the edges of falling in love with Marie, a girl who on the surface counts as mysterious and exotic because she goes to a different high school, though she does have a few scars on her heart that the new romance may or may not make it past.

But tigers are notoriously uncooperative – and the horse trailer doesn’t hold it for long. The police won’t help; as Dripping Springs Tigers alumni, they think the report of a tiger on the loose in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin is the actual senior prank.

So Kip and his tiger theft conspirators enlist the help of Kip’s grandfather to hunt down – or maybe capture – the tiger. Kip respects the danger of the animal, but something deep inside him knows this tiger should be brought back alive. When the team returns with proof, but not a dead tiger, the news spreads like a bar fight and soon every hunter with a box of ammo is in on the adventure to save Texas from the tiger problem.

Marie joins the action, and good thing because soon it’s down to just the teen couple to capture or destroy the tiger before any of the yahoos get themselves killed.

Kip narrates the tale, but being a typical 17-year-old boy, he leaves out one critical detail in the telling – and his internal and external problems come to a head at the adventure’s climax as Kip tries to handle his life’s first big problem like the man he hopes to become.

One Tiger One Teen is a fun action/adventure and coming of age novel that cuts to the heart of growing better as a person. It will engage teens as a prescriptive tale about how to approach life and will captivate adults as a descriptive journey through those emotions and hopes of self-improvement that are not exclusive to the young.

Fast-paced writing, strong on story and action, with doses of teenage humor and realistic dialogue makes this novel an ideal gift if you’re looking for young adult books for boys who don’t like to read; and its fresh storytelling style will fire up seasoned book lovers who are looking for an exciting, new, young adult fiction voice.

-Excerpt taken from Amazon.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

3.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 / 5) Kip plans on stealing a tiger and letting it loose in his school for a senior prank. Brilliant right? Gotta love those teenagers! He goes through with the plan with two of his friends but no surprise, many things go wrong. We’re taken on a journey of stupid mistakes, excellent friendships, fighting for beliefs, righting wrongs and standing up for oneself. I laughed out loud and cringed multiple times! 

Kip is a character that felt very young and immature. He did a lot of growing up and maturing in the book and I liked his character development. Peterson interspersed words of wisdom throughout and a lot were life lessons that Kip took to heart. His grandpa was my favorite character, I would’ve love more scenes with him!

Do you ever wonder what goes through the mind of a teen boy? Not only did we get his “teen boy brain” but the thought process of decisions which was both hilarious and ridiculous! I didn’t like the sexual comments or crude remarks, but I did enjoy his deep thoughts and change in maturity, even his outlook on girls.

I did not care for the regular crude remarks or sexual comments the teens made in the first half of the book, I felt it took away from the tiger story and that’s what I wanted to hear more about. I also learned I do not like to hear what goes through teen boy brains when it comes to sex and attraction! However, once the tiger story really got going, I enjoyed it. I also didn’t love the numbered sections in each chapter. It confused me at first and feel like a section divider would have been more sufficient to continue the flow of the chapter.

It’s a fast-paced story that is full of adventure. I can tell Peterson had a fun time writing it!

Content Summary: 7 F words with scattered language throughout, lots of crude comments about sex and virginity and the like, intense scenes when confronting a tiger- sometimes to the harm of the characters, animal harm, teen sex.

Thank you to Pete Peterson for the copy of his book and the trust he put in me for an honest review.

Detailed Content Review

Language 

F***- 7

H***- 16

S***- 37

A**- 16

B****- 1

D***- 5

Bas****-

Religious Cursing

J****- 2

Chr***- 1

G**- 10

L***-

Derogatory terms or etc-

Douchebag 

“Giggle nuggets”

Dick

Don’t puss out!

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A young man gets a man to buy him alcohol. 

A young man has a case of beer. 

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

*No LGBTQ+ aspects included* 

“Your balls are stickier than normal?”

A group of young men debate whether a young woman is a virgin. They later each think about having sex with “carloads of models.”

A young man wonders “how naked” they’ll get if he goes on a weekend trip with a young woman. 

One young man states that the better you know a girl, the longer it will take for her to have sex with you. He then gave many “quick to sex” examples. 

“…it was two virgins giving sex tips to a third virgin. ‘focus on the cooter berry.’”

“Your underwear is choking out your balls!”

While changing, a young woman makes a young man look at her chest, complaining about them. She then drops her skirt and he sees her underwear. She flirts and pulls up her skirt then kisses him. He’s thinking about sex. 

With a plan for sex that night, a young man buys condoms. He looks at many boxes and determines the bulk pack was good cause he thought they’d be gone in a month. “Trojan lubricated with receptacle tip looked like the McDonald’s Big Mac of rubbers…”

“How was puttin’ the pecker in the pie?”

A young man kisses a young woman and uses his tongue. Normally kissing is his “hopeful first step” while waiting to be able to stick his hand up her shirt. They kiss again. 

A naked young man cleans himself with a hose after having a bowel movement in his pants. He uses his hand to clean himself while his friends laugh. 

A young man sees that a sleeping elderly man has a “raging boner.” 

A young woman says a man (man? She’s 17, he was older) “pushed me to have sex with him, then totally blew me off.” A young man is offended that she had sex with someone else. 

“I had no idea how long foreplay was supposed to last but felt like if it took under 39 minutes I’d probably have all the time I’d need to lose my virginity.”

After showering and hoping for sex; “My balls would smell… fresh… no reason your nuts should smell better than your kisser.” 

“I’d only thought of sex from my side. I wanted in, but she was taking someone in, letting another person inside her.” He comes to a young woman in just a towel. They hug and kiss. They lie down on a bed and continue kissing. He takes her jeans off and admires her panties. He opens her shirt as they continue kissing. He doesn’t have a condom so she grabs one. They have sex. No details. She later states, “I wanted it more than once.” They plan on more that day. 

A woman is a young man’s “masturbation inspiration.” He says he lost his “one-person virginity” to her. He says her chest looks like meteors. 

A young man takes off his clothes to rid himself of bugs. 

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

Three young men catch a tiger and have many close calls that are dangerous. 

A man punches a young man in the gut. 

A young man accidentally steps on a rusty nail. He pries his bloody foot off. 

A man has been arrested. Others are taken in to custody. 

**SPOILER** A young man and young woman shoot at a tiger with bullets and a tranquilizer. The tiger leaps and claws the young man’s arm down to the bone. His blood is dripping to the ground. The tiger is sick and weak. It gives him a warning swat on the head, making him bleed. Later, another tiger knocks the young man over and nibbles his ear. Blood streams down him. He wrestles with the tiger. It claws his leg and digs claws into his chest. He shoots it multiple times, injuring it. 

A young man driving an ATV hits a rock and flies through the air, hitting the ground hard. Many shoot at him. There are many intense moments of falling and protecting the tiger, a lot to the abuse of his body. 

Potentially Intense Themes

A young man and man get multiple guns to hunt a tiger. Guns are given to teens. 

Maggots were “feasting” on a sick tiger. 

**Any quotes from the book are taken from the advance copy and therefore may not be fully accurate or correctly compare to the final copy of the book.

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

5 Comments

  1. Kym,

    Thank you for the great book review. I love that the story made you laugh a few times.

    I feel like you encapsulated the story very nicely and appreciate your observations on the maturing of the main character and the life lessons in the book. You singled out the grandpa as your favorite character – I have heard that comment before and I love it.

    Thank you also for the breakdown on the content – it is a strange experience to see the crude sections standing alone outside of the book. I think what you do here is great so people can ‘see before they buy’ in terms of potentially offensive elements.

    To readers: If this review prompts a purchase please do use The Open Book’s link on this site to buy it so that Kym’s site and her hard work are supported.

    Pete Peterson

    • Pete, you are so kind! I have really enjoyed working with you. Thank you for the opportunity and best of luck with the book!

  2. This is an interesting premise! Although, the crudeness is a definite strike against it for me…..but I’m not the target audience 🤷‍♀️

  3. It does sound like an interesting premise but what would be the point of bringing all that sexual stuff into it? It sounds like something I definitely would have liked as a teenager

  4. This sounds like an interesting read but animal harm is something that I have a really hard time with.

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