This is one of my new favorite books! I read it cover to cover in about 12 hours while I should have been sleeping because I simply COULD NOT put it down before finishing it. McKinley's stream of consciousness style of writing really serves this dark fairytale. I found myself completely absorbed into Lissar's world and hung on for dear life throughout the journey.

I've been wanting to read this for SO LONG and finally bought it. Read like a fairy tale and was a slow fantasy, but I really did enjoy it. Ash is the best dog and I want one.

Kind of wished for a bit more time seeing the Ossen and Lissar interact and a bit more after the wrap up for ship reasons. Also ended rather abruptly. I kind of wanted more answers about the Moonwoman and exactly how/ why Lissar's appearance changed, as well as a bit more explanation about what exactly happened during some of the confrontation scene (it was a massive wtf moment)

I was only there for the dog!!!

Mel

DNF. Waaaaaaaaay to wordy, I lost interest after she made it through Winter, met the magical lady, and just finds civilization again. I tried skimming, but the descriptions and inner monologues went on for pages.

On sale today, 3.16.15 on Amazon for $1.99 on kindle.

This is a story based on Charles Perrault's darkly adult fairy tale, Donkeyskin. It's the tale of your usual most-beautiful-princess - with a twist. Her father decides to marry her after her mother's death, the tale has a rather graphic assault scene to end Part One, and a weak ending to indicate happy ever after. I found Part One (84 pages) very tiresome and tedious, with the language very 'fairy-tale-like', which is great in a short fairy tale but not so fun in a book. However, I slogged through and found that Part Two was much lovelier and worth the wait. Part Three was good, but not the rousing conclusion that Part Three merited. As much as I like McKinley, and as much as I enjoyed Part Two of the novel, I have to rate it lower since the beginning and end weren't as pleasing.

TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE/INCEST/ASSAULT

Uh, where to begin with this one? First of all, I was not at all expecting rape/incest and assault in this book. I've read several of McKinley's books and I haven't quite felt so punched in the gut with this before. The writing, however, had been enough to keep me going, and I had to because I couldn't stop at a part where such an awful thing had happened to the main character.

Now, a lot of this book deals with predominately with PTSD, although in the instance of this story some memory loss/split personality is magically induced - I am not clear why McKinley chose to do this.

The main character, Lissla Lissar, runs away after being brutally raped by her father, a king, and then somehow ends up in a magical hut/cabin up in the mountains. She miscarries her father's baby, and then in delirium rambles out into the snow and is rescued by the goddess, Moonwoman.

It's never made clear at all why Moonwoman helps Lissar by disguising her (changes her hair, eye color, and skin tone, and even grows out her dog's fur??), and then seems to intervene at "key moments" by guiding Lissar where she is supposed to go? Again, Moonwoman's motivations are never revealed. She just happens to show up conveniently when Lissar doesn't seem to know what to do. A little bit of a too-literal Deus Ex-Machina going on here.

In any case, the whole of the story kind of wobbles between Lissar's PTSD and her new life in the yellow city (another kingdom of the realm, coincidentally belonging to the family of the prince who gifted Lissar her dog years ago). There the story kind of meanders on in the day-to-day until Lissar is asked by the prince to attend the ball with him for moral support, then she has all of these flashbacks, massively triggering her PTSD and she bolts and runs when the prince asks her to marry him.

Off she scoots back to the magic cabin, this time with 7 dogs in tow, and this time her dog is rescued by the Moonwoman, again for... unclear reasons? And then she is driven by a "need" aka Magic to return to the city to stop her prince's sister's wedding to, you guessed it, Lissar's father.

Now, I was annoyed but on board up through this point, but then things just veered off into left field. Lissar bursts into the private ceremony of the wedding, where it's supposed to be family and very distinguished guests. There is a very gorey display of Lissar bleeding out everywhere as she confronts her father, and then she reenacts her miscarriage, and there is basically blood everywhere, and then she turns into a weird fire woman who has two dualing images because of... reasons? She then turns her dad into a withered old man instead of the proud man he is, and then when her prince reaches for her she again bolts into the woods. Here, the tone of the book gets exceedingly dramatic, not at all in line with most of the novel, and we shift between the prince and Lissar's points of view, for goodness knows what reason. He catches up to her, they have a dramatic back-and-forth about how she is broken and can't be sure she will ever be unbroken, and they kiss and The End. This is the only part where I'm like... wow, okay, there, heavy-handed handling of rape and wholeness and healing/lackthereof.

It is utterly bizarre.

In any case, I do think that McKinley handles PTSD and the rape/incest pieces very delicately and genuinely, though I found it really frustrating that Lissar's growth and development was pushed about a lot by the intervention of the Moonwoman. It's as though McKinley needed a reason to insert magic into the story that was largely non-magical by nature. Again, we are never told Moonwoman's motivations or why and it's all very strange. It's frankly a bit annoying because Lissar is painted as a non-entity throughout the beginning of the book because she's ignored and overshadowed by her glorious parents, and then we see her lack agency again whenever the Moonwoman decides to intervene. Not exactly strong character building.

There was also this whole business in the beginning of Lissar's mother basically being a vain, horrible person who literally decides to die because she is not the most beautiful in the land and essentially... curses?... her husband by saying he can't marry anyone unless they are as beautiful as she, which I guess is supposed to be some kind of impetus for the eventual rape? In any case, there's a lot of reference to the creepy Queen's portrait throughout that doesn't really go anywhere or do anything and I'm not sure what the point of it was.

Anyway, for all that I have enjoyed many of McKinley's other novels, I can't say that I'd recommend this one at all. Maybe because it is one of McKinley's earlier books, she seems to try and weave in too many components without really being able to tie them all together, and then by all appearances didn't know how to end the book, so we got EPIC MAGIC GORE FLIGHT SCENE, which was also unsatisfying because we don't know what happens to her father and that entire scene is ignored other than a reference of Lissar's blood seeping into the flagstones and the spot being used as an oracle?

I don't know... I understand that the premise of this book came from a disturbing fairy tale, but the whole thing just lacks a clear plot, motivation, and resolution.

A story of transformation and becoming.
Do not read this if younger than 18.

I’ll preface this review by stating that the trigger warnings were not kidding. The scene in question was violent and graphic and the aftermath of the trauma resounded throughout the book.

I debated reading this due to that, but I’m glad I did. It was incredibly written, and felt like a heavy, adult fairytale. The relationship with the dogs was powerful and I loved the legend of the Moonwoman. My only complaint is that I wish there was a bit more description of the animals created by the author.

Trigger warnings: sexual assault, incest, and miscarriage

This book was... a lot.

The plot (in a nutshell) is about when Princess Lissar's drop dead gorgeous mom (I mean like the WHOLE fucking country is absolutely enamored with this bitch) dies and her father becomes obsessed with her, as Lissar looks like her mother. Lissar and her dog Ash escape the castle and find a cottage in the middle of the woods. After surviving the winter there, they stumble upon a nearby kingdom and find work in the castle stables. The prince of the kingdom begins to befriend Lissar, now calling herself Deerskin, and begins to tell her the story of the dead princess of a nearby kingdom… It's a darker retelling of Donkeyskin, my favorite fairytale because fucked up is apparently my aesthetic. (◕‿◕✿)

Though it takes the plot almost 100 pages to go anywhere, it deals with a lot of heavy themes. It was hard to read about these things but in a good-bad kind of way. Reading about Lissar's adventure overcoming her grief and trauma to self discovery was very uplifting. Though all the other characters seem to take the backseat most of the time, but they were cool too.

This book's writing has an air of nonchalance that I really vibed with, almost like someone was telling you a fairytale they've told for the 100th time. Some sentences were absolutely gorgeous, while others were the most pretentious shit I have ever read and had to resist the urge to press the 30 second skip button on the audiobook 12 million times. Yet, I didn't DNF it and kept going back for more.

Audiobook thoughts: Straight up

Acabo de leer la que posiblemente sea mi mejor lectura del año.
Increíble lo que me ha hecho sentir este libro. Momentos super oscuros y momentos cozy, una narración que te envuelve y hace que te olvides completamente del exterior. Ese respeto entre los personajes, ese trauma, esa manera de bloquear el dolor… cuanto he llorado y cuantas emociones ❤️‍

I really liked this book overall. I like Robin McKinley's writing but was wary because I'd gotten warnings about the trauma and specific trigger warnings. But it happens pretty early on, and the book ends up being more about recovery and healing.

The plot dragged in the middle but it has a pretty typical fairy tale arc
Princess runs away, pretends to be a commoner, she meets a prince. So I had a good guess of where it was going.

The ending was also sort of confusing. I think the final showdown was too lyrical for me. I like a bit more concrete action, even if it's magical.
The two women were Lissar and the Goddess? The Goddess was completely benevolent, but there's some evil magic happening? Why was the Mom Queen there? Was she a ghost? Was she also moon touched? Was there an evil mirror image of the Goddess, represented by Mom Queen?

Also, the relationship with her dog is one of the most touching animal relationships I've read. I almost cried when Ash was injured (and no where else).

I liked the ending with Ossin a lot. It was tender and compassionate and optimistic.

Overall it's successful at what it's aiming for: a dark retelling of a fairy tale.