It's difficult to know what to say about this book, and I can't decide whether I enjoyed it or not.

I think if you're considering reading this, you need to be aware that rape is a major theme. It might be a spoiler, but no one should stumble upon that by accident so I'm leaving it out here for all to see. Deerskin is essentially a story of a neglected girl who's raped by her father, and her lengthy, challenging, journey to get to a place where she can live her life outside the shadow of that trauma.

I think McKinley tackles the subject of rape very well. The event itself is blurry, obscured, but I still found myself deeply disturbed by it, horrified for Lissar, hating the father. This wasn't "rape porn", as we're so often seeing on tv today, and it wasn't a random inconsequential event to "increase tension" (I'm looking at you, tv's Game of Thrones). It was the story, and I think it's important that we have stories like this, which explore horrible things without glorifying them or dismissing them as trivial.

Lissar's subsequent traumatised state hovered between realism and fairy tale. It's difficult to say this is an accurate portrayal of healing after such a violent act, but it's believable. Lissar blocks the memory out so powerfully that she forgets who she is. The sequence as she forgets was incredibly powerful and one of the best pieces of writing I've see. As the reader, I knew what she was forgetting at all times, but it never felt unbelievable: it felt like a young woman shying away from horror.

Beyond the early, raw, reality, this story is a fairy tale. It has random "a wizard did it"-style explanations that can often be jarring, confusing, or irritating. As a child I just accepted that oh, a magic beanstalk grew overnight, but as an adult it's harder to swallow. If you're not willing to utterly suspend your disbelief and accept whatever magical explanations come your way, you definitely won't like this book. For me, I struggled through it, but it's largely what makes me ambivalent about the story.

I feel like Moonwoman undermines the value of Lissar's story somewhat. She doesn't get through the rape by her own strength, she's gifted with lying on a hillside completely senseless for four years? I still don't get it. It made it feel like a cheap excuse to send Lissar off to fall in love with Ossin, without writing (or figuring out how it would be possible) living in the cabin for years, something that would stop readers from going 'but she was only just traumatically raped, how could she fall in love now?'

That said, I did enjoy the Moonwoman myth, just not the way it conveniently melded with Lissar to shift her in and out of camouflage and give her places her to stay when she needed it.

The characters outside Lissar had that fairy-tale quality to them as well. They were never really fully fleshed out. This usually irritates me a lot, but Lissar is very self-focused for obvious reasons so I was ok with it, but definitely felt the lack of a cast of fun characters.

The final weakness of this story was the writing. I've read a fair amount of McKinley, but many years ago when I wasn't as experienced a writer. Now ... well, the writing kind of drove me up the wall. McKinley uses SO MANY complex sentences. They have semi-colons, multiple commas, interjections, jumps back and forth between subjects and I just ... seriously struggled at times to understand what the heck was going on. I've already returned it to the library, otherwise I'd type up a paragraph to show you, but for now, here, I'll try to write something that's sort of, maybe, in the kind of complexity because it's overwhelming, the complexity, and the sentences might be entire paragraphs, and they seemed endless, and now I'm going to jump back to the library because she did that a lot but I don't have a reason to jump back to the library.

The sentences were all grammatically correct, but seriously there was so many asides and jumping back and forth that I had to read a lot of them several times before I could grasp the overall gist of it. It reminded me of Dickens somewhat. I'm all for the occasional use of complex sentences, and I think modern fiction tends to stray too far away from them, but daaaaaaamn. It really got in the way of the story.

The positives of this are mostly dog-related. I don't really like dogs and haven't spent much time around them, but Lissar is a Dog Person, and it changes her life, and you can feel that. Reading the antics of the dogs was fun, and certain turns of phrase perfectly captured their movements.

I still don't know what star rating to give this book. Usually I talk myself into one as I'm reviewing it, but I still feel lost. I guess I'll just sum up. This book is traumatic. It's hopeful. It's unrealistic. It's predictable. It's mystical. It's very, very doggy. If those things appeal to you, maybe you'll love this book.

I love this book. It's incredible. Robin McKinley did an amazing job of taking a fairy tale and creating a beautiful story of strength and survival out of it.

If you are not yet coping with a sexual abuse trauma, don't read this book. If you have no sexual abuse trauma, or are dealing with it, this book is wonderful. If you are in that first category, I think it would be too jarring, too raw, too something.

McKinley's writing is amazing, dreamlike, gutwrenching & heartwarming. This book is not for everyone. It has a very dark tone & the first few chapters are very painful to read. Your heart will be ripped to pieces several times before the book ends. BUT despite all of this I found it to be a very uplifting story of triumph & love.
It is the story of Princess Lissar, who at first glance appears to live a charmed life. Actually, once we dig a little deeper we realize Lissar is very alone & isolated in her world. Her parents don't seem to remember she exists, she has no friends only servants. The turning point begins when her Mother dies and she receives a puppy as a gift of condolence from Prince Ossin whom she names Ash. Dear old Dad, crazy with grief over the loss of his Queen, turns into a nutcase & completely forgets he has daughter for several years. During this time Lissar & Ash grow up together & become bonded closer than any two beings can be. Then one day Dad remembers he has a daughter & decides it is time for her to marry & start producing an heir. Once he takes a good look at Lissar he notices how beautiful she has become & how much she resembles her mother. I don't want to give anything else away but this is the beginning of Lissar's transformation into the mystical creature Deerskin & the end of her life as she knows it.

Despite the dreary beginning, this story is ultimately a positive one & especially recommended for dog/animal lovers. The scenes with the puppy rearing, Lissar's eventual opening up to Prince Ossin & the magical, mystical qualities of the story make this a must read. Lissar is a heroine to admire & Prince Ossin is a ray of light in a world filled with selfish, spoiled & revolting men. Lissar's dog Ash is the glue that holds her together through good times and bad.

So, if you're up for an emotional read that is well worth the pain put a day aside to read this one & make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy. You're guaranteed to cry tears of pain & of joy. This one unquestionably gets 5 out of 5 stars.

Oh my, I scarcely know what to say about this book. It's actually not quite 5 stars, but I'd feel bad only giving it four.

It's wrenching, maddening, lyrical, unflinchingly honest in the way of fairy tales, and it's terribly sad. If it weren't for the dogs, I'm not sure I could've read it. I knew it was about a woman who was raped by her father when I bought it. It was on a list compiled by NPR of books about strong women. That's why I bought it. I thought I was prepared for it. I work as a practicing psychotherapist, and have sat in my office with women (and men) who have been through this same thing. I have been enraged before by the way families and society blame the victim in situations like this. And yet when I read it in this book, I was so upset I had to stop reading for a while.

I got up and cleaned my kitchen, walked the dogs, cast around for some light hearted simple minded book to read. Then I decided to pick it up again. I'd put it aside right after the rape and his killing of her beloved dog.

But the dog was not dead. The rest of the book is about her healing, and her recovery, and the way she comes into her own power. It's also about the dog, and then dogs, as she finds her way to the court of the man who'd given her the dog in the first place, and she nurses a litter of puppies whose mother died and she keeps them alive along with herself.

I hadn't read Robin McKinley before, but now will have to look at her other books. I love dogs. :-) And they save this book from being unbearable.