Not a review--just would like to say this is one of my all time favorites.

am  a romantic so I love a good fairy-tale with princes and princesses and true love which conquers all.   This is what lead me to pick up the book Deerskin by Robin McKinley who has done some great retelling of traditional fairy-tales  (often found in the teenage collection).  So when I saw this in the adult fiction, I prepared myself for a good read and I wasn't disappointed.  
The book begins where most books leave off.  The Prince has found his Princess, they marry and take over ruling the kingdom.  Yet there is no happily-ever-after.  The new King and Queen are caught up in  their all-consuming love and have little room for their daughter, Lissla Lissar.  She is left to grow up alone in a kingdom that adores her parents until tragedy strikes.  The Queen, "the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms,"  dies and her father is thrust into madness.
During this time Lissar receives her first friend as a gift - a fleet-hound puppy called Ash from a Prince from a nearby country.   Lissar is unaffected by palace life and her blossoming beauty, and spends all her time training the puppy.  As she grows more into the beauty of her mother, Lissar must flee from her father's madness and lust.
Wounded in body, mind and spirit by her father Lissar flees her palace live, with her faithful dog Ash,  to the mountains where she must recover.  She makes a new life for herself  living among a people where she finds love and acceptance but no peace.   
There is a dream like quality to McKinley as she writes yet she leaves vivid pictures in the readers mind of Lissar struggling to survive,  running barefoot through the countryside with her dogs.  Central to the story is the love that Lissar and Ash share as it is in this relationship that she finds the strength to finally recover, confront her father, and regain the memories of her life as a princess.
For those who love fairy-tales, this is an adult version as it addresses issues of incest and rape. It is at times painful to read because it is full of brokenness, but there is joy and healing, and of course a love that triumphs!
Highly recommended!

Una historia de fantasía preciosísisisisima.

After Sunshine I wanted more McKinley... and whoa.

In their native form, fairytales compass horrifying depths of human evil. But their mode - straightforward narrative, factual style, minimal description - generally avoids plunging the audience into darkness. Expansive fairytale retellings like this one, which does not abridge its source material, can't avoid it. The trauma in this story is palpable. It builds quietly in the early chapters. It reduces you to trembling during the assault you foresaw pages and pages before but kept hoping would not really happen. And it haunts the rest of the book.

McKinley handles her source material so well, I'm hard-pressed to think of Deerskin's equal. If each economical sentence of the original story is a bud, this is its blooming... expertly grafted into a well-realized otherworld, complete with its own customs, kingdoms, and mythologies - like the Artemis-type Moonwoman, who eventually grants Lissar her aspect.

Deerskin is a good book, but a hard read. It has much to say about objectification, both as it existed in ancient courts and high society and as an enduring archetype of social inclination, and unveils the cursed fruit such behavior nourishes in various people caught up in it. Just like a good fairytale, its artful observations add depth to a splendid story. Recommended, with caution.

I read a lot of heavy, brutal books, but I can’t stomach this one. I’m at the halfway point where I think the more hopeful story starts, but between the character’s unrelenting pain and Robin McKinley’s eloquence and need to expound on the mental pain in ornately written but fraught paragraphs that leave me wondering how the sentence started of what exactly the point is or when it’ll end or why is this still being discussed and what is real and what is not and amnesia and trauma and vague but horrifying scenes, with constant dread and foreboding -

Well. It’s just not for me. I love retellings, love McKinley, and have a strong stomach. But this is the wrong book at the wrong time, and my experience was as tangled as each paragraph seemed to be.

Not even the fantastic human/dog relationship and its accompanying heart-warming scenes could get me any further.

La pequeña Lissla Lissar vive en uno de los reinos más grandes del mundo. Sus padres, los reyes, son venerados por el pueblo y la historia de como se conocieron y forjaron su amor se ha convertido en una de las grandes leyendas de lugar. Todos admiran la belleza de la reina y la imponente figura del rey. La única que no siente esta admiración por los reyes es Lissar, que siempre se ha sentido abandonada por ambos y conforme crecía notaba aún más esa ausencia de vínculo afectivo con sus progenitores. Además, su forma de ser, que no es nada apropiada para una princesa, la hace sentir aún más fuera de lugar en su mundo de opulencia. Sin embargo, alguien logrará salvarla de esta sensación de soledad, Ceniza, una perrita enviada desde un reino amigo por motivo de su cumpleaños. El flechazo entre las dos es inmediato. Un trágico suceso obligará a las dos amigas a huir al bosque en busca de un nuevo destino.

“Piel de ciervo” es un retelling de un cuento de Perrault llamado “Piel de asno”, el cual he investigado, y me gusta ver como la obra de Robin McKinley se separá muchísmo del cuento original, poniendo en el centro de la trama a Lissar y su vínculo con Ceniza. Tras un trauma, Lissar necesita sanar, necesita curarse y su fiel compañera Ceniza la ayuda en esa travesía. Lo primero que me llamó la atención es que pese a ser un cuento de hadas, la historia no narra muchísimos momentos heroicos o de acción, más bien se centra en el interior de su protagonista, y nos muestra a Lissar mientras transita por el complicado camino que debe seguir para reconstruir sus pedazos, reponerse al dolor y poder seguir adelante. Me gusta mucho como la autora trata las fases del trauma, dando todo el espacio necesario para que el lector pueda sumergirse en la trastornada mente de su protagonista y vivir con ella todo el proceso.

“Piel de ciervo” no es una historia ágil ni sencilla, y no solo por los temas que trata, sino por como está contada. A ratos puede ser densa, y al estar centrada en las emociones de su protagonista y en su fragmentada mente, a veces puede sentirse algo dispersa, por eso es una de esas obras que necesita que el lector esté muy presente mientras la lee, para poder sacarle el máximo jugo. Al estar narrada de una forma muy íntima, muy “para dentro”, una cosa que destaca es como se muestra la cotidianidad del día a día de Ceniza y Lissar, a través de la búsqueda de alimentos con los que subsistir, el mantenimiento y limpieza del lugar donde se resguardan del frío o los cuidados que se dan la una a la otra. Es más, los cuidados son, sin lugar a dudas, el tema central de la historia, la importancia de sanar, de retirarse para cuidar de una misma y dejarse cuidar por otros que te quieran bien, y como ese apoyo sirve de sostén para mantenerse, para poder recuperarse y volver a ser quien eres.

Pese a que la obra no deja de ser una revisión de un cuento de hadas clásico y mantiene muchos de lo elementos propios de estos, creo que la autora sabe darle un giro a todo lo anticuado o rancio con respecto a este tipo de historias, para transformarla en otra cosa. En este cuento hay un príncipe, porque sí, como todo cuento de hadas, tiene un príncipe. Sin embargo, este está muy alejado del prototipo de hombre atractivo, imponente y, normalmente, agresivo, cualidad que suele confundirse con valentía. El príncipe de “Piel de ciervo” es descrito como un hombre normal, poco atractivo, más centrado en la naturaleza y los animales que cuida que en nada que tenga que ver con su reino o el amor, al que le cuesta especialmente relacionarse con los demás. Se agradece poder disfrutar de personajes masculinos heteros que no tengan comportamientos que te chirríen. Parece una tontería, pero es muy difícil de encontrar ese tipo de personajes. Y que esta obra tenga más de treinta años le aporta un valor añadido.

El tramo final me ha parecido perfecto: es duro, es impactante y es bonito. Creo que es el cierre perfecto para una historia de superación, donde la protagonista busca reconstruir sus pedazos, volver a ser ella misma, y aprender a ser feliz pese a sus heridas. Mi parte favorita de la obra es esa manada que la protagonista crea junto a Ceniza y una camada de cachorros que con sus cuidados logra salvar. He disfrutado de ese vínculo que crean todos y como Lissar es una más de la manada. Existen escenas visualmente muy poderosas en relación a esto. Si le tengo que poner un pero a la obra, diré que a veces me ha costado un poco leer algunas escenas de caza, porque se me hacían muy difíciles de digerir. El resto me ha encantado, pero repito que no es una obra ágil, por lo cual al que se anime con ella le recomendaría que lo hiciera cuando pueda dedicarle la ateción que merece.

DISCUSSION OF TRIGGERS. This is That Book. The one that includes rape and incest in the text as important plot points and does not even imply them on the jacket copy as elements.

Luckily, I do not have triggers around either topic, but if I had, it would not have gone well for me. The plot is basically about recovery from incestuous rape with a crouton of survivalism on top and a drizzle of YAY PUPPIES.

It was certainly compelling reading, and Ossin was a completely awesome love interest, but I kind of wanted McKinley *not* to follow the pattern of giving Lissar a love interest (and such an obvious one, too, that really disappointed me). If she had to fall in love with anyone, it should've been the handmaiden. (*sulks and wants moar lesbian fantasy*) And I want to know why McKinley thought it was a better idea for her to become part of a life at the royal court as part of her recovery rather than returning to being an herbalist's apprentice, which is the only part of her life that she remembers.

I don't own this, and I am not buying it.

A Robin McKinley book is never bad. Like a Jane Yolen book is never bad.

Deerskin is based on "Donkeyskin", a Charles Perrault tale that is usually neutered and deals with the theme of incest. "Donkeyskin" appears in other collections in variations such as Thousand Furs. These tales are related to "Cinderella" but are darker in nature for the princess flees her father who wants to marry her.

McKinley's retelling is a study in the recovery from abuse and assault. It is more of a inner journey than an outer one. I can get over my disappointment in the departure from the source material. In the orignial stories, the princess is able to fool her father and her court by demanding dresses, which she takes with her when she flees. Lissar, McKinley's princess, cannot do this. Yet, because of the inner journey, it keeps true to the tale.

This book was tough. It isn't anything like Beauty, which remains my favourite book by Robin Mckinley. It deals with painful issues, rape, incest, the loss of a child of rape, escape and eventually healing. It is beautifully written in a dreamy fashion. Wonderful.

Someone asked me here about how Robin McKinley influenced my writing. I answered:

I've been reading her ever since I ran across DEERSKIN by accident. That book really blew me away, with how she took the familiar fairy tale structure, then wove in all the ugly, behind-doors human twistiness that the the story gloss covers. So, when I wrote THE MARK OF THE TALA, I wanted to do something like that - start with the shiny pretty and then gradually reveal what can lurk beneath that.

And then I realized I'd never added that book to my #ReadingHistory. I'm thick in the middle of reading for the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter's PRISM contest, so I'll do more Robin McKinley #ReadingHistory all week. Whee!!!

5 Stars for Deerskin (audiobook) by Robin McKinley read by Xe Sands.
My wife recommended this to me. It’s one of her favorite books and I’m happy to report that I really enjoyed it too. It looks like I’m going to be reading more Robin McKinley. Also, Xe Sands did a great job with the narration.

Compelling and disturbing, a Fairy Tale that confronts Reality: do not make the mistake of assuming "Deerskin" is a typical fantasy... yet its value lies most in what makes it atypical.

First, and in a lighter vein, it shows how near-isolation of a child can inhibit that child's understanding of humans and human interactions. Lissla Lissar grows up the neglected and ignored child of parents so enamored with one another that they rarely see her, and even to her nurse, she is of value only as her mother's daughter. Her royal parents' glamour (made of extreme physical beauty, of the myth of romance, and of the unrecognized powerful magic of personality her mother wields, which overwhelms everyone) occupy everyone's attention---Lissar is almost completely ignored. Along with this is a subtle point on how people, even societies, can choose the wrong criteria for what is "good and admirable." Two societies contrast in this book: one which puts conventional beauty, social strata, and what one wishes to believe as paramount---you can follow how they lie to themselves, and are unable to recognize truth, unable to see and believe in their Princess; and one society that puts Love and Life as paramount, where people are judged by who they are and how they act, not what they are or how much they glitter.

The second, and pivotal point of the book deals with the twin traumas of rape and incest. It is here that McKinley puts forth her most compelling writing, for to read this book is to understand, at least a little, the wounds such victims suffer all their lives. As one real life male victim once put it [paraphrasing], "It's not like a scar that eventually heals and stops hurting; instead it's as if you've lost part of your leg and limp forever afterward. It is psychic murder, for you will never again be the person you were before it happened... the damage is that fundamental." Survivors don't "get over it": like a person missing a foot, they learn to live and move despite the damage that can never be repaired, damage that will always impair them in some fashion. Their courage is in going on to live anyway, as best they are able. Many write of the initial trauma in a way that one feels great sympathy and pain for the victim; few are able to write of the ongoing, permanent damage in such a way that non-victims can understand it---McKinley has, and I thank her for it.

Lastly, the bulk of the book deals with healing, with learning to love and trust, with dealing with the damage and choosing for Life and Love---despite and around the damage and dismemberment of the psyche. It also clearly shows the kind of courage it takes to do this, the kind of strength it takes to admit and express weakness, the fierce strength of heart where one can openly face the painful past in order to protect another from similar ravages. It ends not in a "happy ending," but merely in hope, in a choice to try for happiness---which is in itself courageous, because it is a choice for Life, not Death. Sometimes the choice to go on trying, to make room for love and life despite such wounds, is the most courageous of all.