JUST FINISHED: Deerskin by Robin McKinley.
Princess Lissla Lissar is raised on tales of her beautiful mother (the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms) and magnificent father, and their love story to end all love stories, but their distance and preoccupation with one another mean that she knows them very little – until her mother’s death draws her father’s attention down on her, and she finds that it’s not something to be desired at all.
Wow, what a powerful story! McKinley’s almost dreamlike prose really emphasised every emotion in this book; grief and joy and terror and hope… It’s been a couple of hours since I finished reading Deerskin, but I’m still shaking a bit from the intensity of my feelings about it – which is absolutely not something that happens to me often. This is definitely one of my favourite reads of the year, and I can already say pretty confidently that I think this is going to stay that way.
As a retelling (of the fairytale Donkeyskin, first told by Charles Perrault), it was a reasonably predictable story, but it was beautifully told, and its (very) dark themes of rape and incest were, I felt, dealt with both realistically and respectfully. Its characters were well fleshed-out; Lissar in particular was an incredibly strong character; the romance was sweet and nicely understated; and the bonds between Lissar and her dog Ash (and later the puppies) was wonderfully heartwarming. I would consider this a must-read for any dog lover who’s not too put off by the aforementioned themes.
CURRENT READATHON STATUS: I made it! With one whole minute of September left to spare! This book was for the disability rep. prompt, and I assume that it was included on the books-with-disabled-characters list that I found because of Lissar’s amnesia…? But to be honest I probably would have picked something else for this prompt if I’d known more about the book.
Books Completed: 9
Pages Read: 3011
Hours Listened: 14:41
Challenges Completed: 9
Nightjar's Jar of Books 