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    Tender Morsels
    Tender Morsels
    Tender Morsels
    Audiobook14 hours

    Tender Morsels

    Written by Margo Lanagan

    Narrated by Anne Flosnik and Michael Page

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. Liga lives modestly in her own personal heaven, a world given to her in exchange for her earthly life. Her two daughters grow up in this soft place, protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever—magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga’s refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 1, 2009
    ISBN9781423396819
    Tender Morsels
    Author

    Margo Lanagan

    Margo Lanagan has been publishing stories for children, young adults and adult readers for twenty-five years. She has won numerous awards, including four World Fantasy Awards. Two of her books have been Michael L. Printz Honor books and she has been shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula awards and for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the young adult division. Visit Margo at her blog, AmongAmidWhile.Blogspot.com, or follow her on Twitter at @MargoLanagan.

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    Reviews for Tender Morsels

    3.5/5

    397 ratings58 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Terrifying and amazing. Published as adult fiction in the author's home country, as young adult fiction in mine, and having fair warning about the story's graphic scenes I tried to keep my expectations pretty broad. Drawn from "The Ungrateful Dwarf" (the source material for the Grimm Brother's fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red"), Lanagan explores pain and beauty, the misuse of magic, and living in a man's, man's world. There were some places where I felt it dragged and I just wanted to hurry and get back to the characters that I liked better. Even still, the unique language and lyrical prose kept me enthralled, and I understood why those scenes were there overall. Not an easy read, but an extremely worthwhile one. Before I was finished with it, I ordered a copy of the audiobook because I plan on spending time with this gem again.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Beautiful, but very difficult to get through.
    • 4/5
      A disturbing fairy tale in the style of the Brothers Grimm. After being routinely raped and abused by her father, Liga is given a magical gift from a fey stranger. She wakes up in a world where all her fantasies have come true. She goes on to raise her two children in a world that doesn't condemn them for the way in which they were conceived. But what will happen when her children long for a real world? Beautifully written and brilliantly original this tale will twist your heart and enchant you mind. Lovely!
    • 3/5
      Fascinating story, great fractured fairy tale, lovely writing...and so much sexual assault my head almost exploded. I can't imagine who I could recommend this book to. The ending particularly was very frustrating and upsetting.
    • 2/5
      Winner of the World Fantasy Award, The Printz award as well as recommended by my favourite author, Mr. Gaiman I had truly high expectations for this book. Sadly those hopes were diminished.

      Based off the original version of the Grimm's Rose Red and Snow White this story had much promise. From the first pages, I'd wondered if this was the same book that had been recommended to me so often? Or was it some trickery? Had someone glued the pages of another story and bound it with this beautiful cover so skilfully drawn by the genius, Shaun Tan.

      Sadly, this was indeed the story that was recommended to me. No mistakes. First and foremost this is a disturbing book with elements of rape, incest, beastiality and nightmarish scapes. This should not be classified as a young adult novel. As a bookseller I certainly would not want a pre-teen reading this.

      I read it from cover to cover as I was immersed in the story, it was not predictable and the writing was good. Margo has an incredible talent for transporting you to amazing dream scapes, however she also succeeds in transporting you into the realm of nightmares where unspoken acts are committed. I'll be haunted by this story and it is certainly a book I shan't forget in a hurry.

      Dearest Liga, the protagonist was the reason I kept reading this book. I wish the book was told more from her perspective and I am also quite sad about the ending, however in staying to true Grimm storytelling the ending was dark, bittersweet and left us with a heartbroken protagonist who's entire hopes and slightest glimmer of any form of happiness is taken from her. I wish she had a better ending but it was bloody good writing to not give in and give her the cookie cutter, picket fence, apple pie, hugs and kittens ending.

      If Studio Ghibli were still in business, I would love for them to do an adaption of this novel. I think they could somehow make the darkness work (in the weird way that they always make incredibly dark themes resonating and beautiful). It just had a ghibli feel, especially the dream scapes.

      This book was full on, not in a good way. it wasn't my cup of tea that's for sure.

      A really disturbing read.
    • 2/5
      Sometimes issues and fairy tales don't mix... That - or I was just not in the mood for the type of book that comes with a readers' group guide at the back.
    • 2/5
      A wretchedly dark and grim re-telling of the old “Snow-White and Rose-Red” fairy tale (not to be confused with the Disney Snow White), in which teen mom Liga takes her two daughters (begot by incest and gang-rape) into an alternate reality to raise them away from the world. Far too many nasty goings-on and penis references for my taste. (Dwarves and rods and bears, Oh My!) I never would have continued reading this if I was not stuck in the airport.
    • 3/5
      I was expecting this book to be Goldilocks and the three bears with a bit of a twist. Well that it is not. The book is well written, but be prepared. Liga gets kicked all over the place, abused by her father, gang raped by a group of boys, and suicidal, the moonbab sends her to her dream world. Her and her two daughters, Urda and Branza live there for many years. Occasionally there are visitors from the outside world but all they are doing is creating a mess. Eventually Urda leaves dream land, and a year later, the affects of dream land are starting to mess up the real world, so finally Branza and Liga are pulled out of dream land too. Liga gets her final kick in the ass when the man she is in love with and has been in love with for a long time Davit, asks for Branza's hand in marriage. The daughters turn out extremely well considering their origins, but couldn't Liga at least get something good for herself?
    • 5/5
      So far this is an amazing, opium haze of a story. I'm about halfway through, and its just lovely. But this is another one of those books that make me wonder about YA as a category... do I think that teenagers would like it? I think some older teens and college aged readers would...but the language is difficult, even at times for me (and I consider myself quite an experienced and patient reader). But it seems more like a literary/experimental novel to me. But then again, perhaps if it had been marketed as such, it might not have sold quite as well. And I certainly want Ms. Lanagan to have ALL the money she can for such a beautiful book.
    • 3/5
      Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan is a rather earthy reworking of the Snow White/Rose Red fairy story and with it’s incidents of incest and rape is not for everyone. While this book was based on one of my favorite fairy tales, I admit to getting very little enjoyment from this read as I found the storyline rather convoluted and often confusing.I think that adapting these type of stories must be very difficult but I couldn’t help but feel like the author was trying too hard to match her story with the fable with the result that at times her hard work showed too clearly. Perhaps my love of the original fairy story has warped my viewpoint but I was hoping to actually like the story more than I did. Although Tender Morsels was marketed as a YA read, I thought the themes were very adult dealing as it did with how brutal life can be. There were parts that were both funny and tragic, but there was also a little too much perversion, cruelty and darkness included that left me feeling quite uncomfortable with the story. However, this is a lushly written book that faces up to the dark side of life and although I personally didn’t like it, it is a strongly written story that conveys a powerful message.
    • 4/5
      This one is a mind bender for sure, but if you have the patience and enjoy fantasy, it's a very worthwhile read. I ended up really enjoying it, but I know a lot of people don't like it.
    • 3/5
      I was really excited to read this book because I love fairy tale retellings. This is a fairy tale retelling of Snow White and Rose Red. I have heard mixed things about this novel and after reading it I can understand why. Some parts are beautifully written and some are incredibly boring.Liga has had a horrible childhood and preteen existence. At fifteen she has a small child (who is her father’s) and is pregnant with another (from rape by town boys) when a magical being grants her life in her personal heaven. In this peaceful place, that is Liga’s ideal world, she raises her two daughters Branza (Snow White) and Urdda (Rose Red). Urdda is especially eager to seek out adventure and when a very manlike bear shows up, Urdda decides there must be a way out of this world. As the two worlds start to collide things begin to unravel.Okay let’s get the controversial issues out of the way. Yes there is a lot of uncomfortable material in this book. Liga is raped by her father many, many times and abused by him after her mother dies. Her father forces abortion on her more than once. These scenes aren’t explicit but you know what is going on. At first Liga doesn’t think much of it, just that she doesn’t like what her dad does in a kind of ambiguous way, but as she grows older she realizes how wrong it was. Is it pretty and fun to read about? No. This is however written about is a tasteful way that comes off more as sad than as sensationalist. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for young adults to read about rape and abuse, it helps them know when things are wrong and what types of situations to avoid.Liga is then raped by a bunch of town boys one of which is colored. There has been a lot of uproar about the fact one of the rapists is colored. This confuses me because she is raped by multiple boys. Most of them are white and one is colored. She happens to get pregnant with the colored rapist’s child. This child ends up being Urdda who is “red-skinned” and wild and causes a lot of trouble. Many people see this as racist for some reason, but I think they need to consider the original fairy tale. Snow White (Branza) is always portrayed as the rule follower and is always as white as snow in hair and face. Rose Red (Urdda) is always portrayed as having some sort of red feature (hair, skin color, whatever) and is the wild rule breaker. I saw this whole issue as more of Lanagan being true to the fairy tale that she was retelling than really isolating a certain skin color of person. Also most of the rapists and evil people in this story are white...so how is that racist? Anyway, that’s just my take on it.Okay, now we have most of the controversial issues out of the way. Let’s talk about the story. Liga is a victim, she was raised that way and she has trouble choosing for herself. Liga, likes having someone to tell her what to do. When bad things happen to her she deals with them and moves on, it is practical and very sad all at once. She is definitely used to no one caring if she is in pain. She tries to raise her daughters differently, but trapped in her personal Heaven there isn’t a lot of conflict around to teach them how to deal with real life.Branza and Urdda end up both being strong characters in their own ways and I enjoyed them a lot. Both of them are a bit rebellious and learn different ways of coping when they are forced to leave Heaven and make their way through the conflict that is the real world.I liked how there was a time difference between the two worlds, this difference in time flow added a lot of interesting aspects to the story. I liked how the two worlds were tied together by certain commonalities.The beginning of this book is beautifully written and wonderfully paced. However for me things started to fall apart in the middle of the story. We start to jump around willy nilly between different points of view. Sometimes we hear from Branza, Liga or Urdda...then we also start to hear from the Dwarf and the boys who dress up as Bears.This is where things start getting a bit weird. The boys who dress up as Bears for Bear Day in the real world turn into real bears when they fall into Heaven. There one of the bears befriend the three women. This gets weird because Liga kind of falls in love with Bear. The women do not know these Bears are men. Then second Bear comes to Heaven and he likes to grope Branza with his bear paws and mess around with the female bears in the forest. Not only is some of this kind of odd and disturbing...it just gets plain old boring. I mean really we could have cut 200 pages out of the middle of this book and been just fine; the pacing was just completely off.Well, I have already written a book about this book...so I am not going to say much more. It’s kind of a shame the middle was so bogged down because some of this book is beautifully written and there are some really neat ideas in here.Overall some parts were beautiful, some parts were downright weird, and some were just plain old boring. I love some of the ideas here, but the story just lags at points. This was one of those books by the time I got to the end I was just absolutely relieved to be done with it...it felt like it went on forever. I wish I could recommend this, but I just don’t think it is a book most people will enjoy.
    • 4/5
      I am left feeling disturbed and sad. I'm not sure which of these emotions is stronger.How many times must poor little Liga get her heart shattered, Ms. Lanagan?! How many times must her very soul be shattered before our eyes?! How many?!Tender Morsels takes place in two very different worlds. The real world and Liga Longwood's dream world.In Liga's dream world all the people that wronged her or judged her are gone. Everyone here is happy, healthy, and peaceful. And why shouldn't they be? This is the place of her heart's desire, is it not? There is no alcohol, money, violence, or anything that would frighten or hurt her and her 2 daughters, Branza and Urdda.Everything bad was left behind in the real world. The world she escaped, with the help of a "moon-babby", after a horrible deed was committed on her when she was 15.Liga knows what it's like outside of this world. She doesn't want to return.Her youngest daughter Urdda, however, knows nothing of the outside world. She was born in this safe place. All she knows of the other world are stories her mother tells her.This other place fascinates Urdda. Her hopes of going to the other world are further sparked when she sees a "littlee-man" disappear in the river. She tells herself that next time she sees him, she will follow him, for surely he knows how to navigate both worlds.Just remember, little Urdda, curiosity killed the cat.If this dream place were somehow taken from these ladies, would they be able to survive out in the real world? Where neighbors can't be trusted and people don't always have the best intentions, no matter how nice they seem? Or will the cruel ways of this world destroy them?Tender Morsels is a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red.Incest, rape, bestiality.If those 3 words make you queasy this book isn't for you. At all.I can't believe it is considered a YA book...Like I said before, this book left me both disturbed and sad.I was either thinking of ways to scrub my brain clean of certain things I had just read or trying not to cry. One of the main characters in this book, Liga, goes through so much just in the first few chapters that I didn't think she would survive it all. I began to question if I was going to be able to make it through this book. Seeing as how it is... extremely "dark".I was fully prepared to rate this 3.5 stars until I read a paragraph narrated by wild-child Urdda as she passed by her mother's old cottage and it made me tear up. Even now as I'm remembering it it's bringing tears to my eyes... If the ending didn't damn near break my heart I would be giving this book 5 big ol' stars right now. But, sadly, I'm not. I can only take so much sadness in a book, you know.My heart is breaking for Liga. She was nothing but an innocent and beautiful child who had to endure nightmares since a very young age.I truly believe life is not fair. And I have never believed it more.
    • 4/5
      Fifteen-year-old Liga has suffered terrible abuse, sexual and otherwise, at the hands of her father. When he dies, she experiences a brief period of relief, only to find herself subjected to still more suffering in the form of a brutal rape by five young men who regard a girl alone as an easy target. Hurt and full of despair, she goes into the woods with the intention of committing suicide, only to encounter an unexpected magic that sends her into another world, a world free of danger, fear, and unkindness, where she can raise the two daughters who resulted from her abuse in peace. But that world is not exactly real, and it is not possible to stay there forever.Although you wouldn't guess it from that description, this is based on the fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red." (Not to be confused with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," which is an entirely different story, featuring six more dwarfs than this one.) It's an odd fairy tale, really, and it perhaps makes for a bit of an odd novel, but it's an absorbing one. It's very well written, with compelling characters and a subtle sense of fairy tale enchantment, and by the end I found it rather emotionally affecting. But it's also a disturbing story, full of distressing events. Needless to say, those who find descriptions of sexual assault and related horrors unbearable to read should stay away. Those scenes generally aren't exactly graphically depicted, but, man, they don't need to be. And the novel's constant depiction of men -- of most men -- as dangerous sexual predators is deeply depressing, and, for me, at least, almost got to be a little too much.
    • 1/5
      Couldn't get past the first 50 pages - dull and depressing. Even when cheered upa bit it was still dull, and you knew even more depressing stuff was bound to come up in the next 400-odd pages. Din't finish. Tiptree shortlist 2008
    • 5/5
      I surfaced from this book this afternoon and have been unable to shake the sounds of it from my brain. One of the most vivid things for me about this story is the muscular way Lanagan uses language. There's so much that can be done with sheer force of words, and Lanagan plumbs those depths with skill and agility.

      There are so many levels to this story, and so much happening below the surface that it's hard to muster any response beyond sheer slack-jawed appreciation. The worlds are all richly imagined, both inner and outer, real and dreamt, for all that none of them are at all comfortable, none of them are safe.

      The core of the book -the heart of it- beats with that lack of safety, lack of control and it's infused with rage and bitterness and somehow manages to be a hopeful and redemptive tale. So well done it's merciless.

      Highly recommended, but beware of darkness.
    • 4/5
      A great book, don't get me wrong, but there's no way teens in my library would read this without it being forced upon them. It's well-written and the world building is tight, but it's also brutal, challenging, and kinda icky in places. I can't believe this was really intended for a YA audience.
    • 4/5
      Very odd and EXTREMELY weird!
    • 5/5
      Everybody should read this. It's an amazing book, a modern fairy tale (not as in present-day setting, but as in written recently) that really feels like the fairy tales generations have grown up on.

      Older teen and adult; I think this has a lot of crossover appeal. And did I mention it's amazing?
    • 4/5
      Incest, rape; refuge, healing; reality? Tender morsels carries motifs from Snow White, Rose Red, but stands on its own as the story of Liga and her daughters Brenza and Urdda.
    • 4/5
      Very rarely does a book of such high quality twist my stomach into knots. Tender Morsels is definitely one of the most disturbing books I have read, but it is also a triumph in the beauty of modern fairy tales. After undergoing tremendous amounts of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse from a number of men, fifteen year old Liga, along with her two infant daughters, magically transports herself to the world of her heart's desire. Here she rears her daughters in a land where the men are distant, shy, and respectful. Years later, however, Liga's world comes crashing down when Urdda disappears and a witch arrives, disrupting Liga's precious dream and forcing her to step back into the real world with all its hardships and memories.
    • 4/5
      This is one of those “push through the initial misery” books. The opening is truly disturbing. Even though Lanagan (thankfully) doesn’t go into detail, the first fifty pages with their descriptions of the girl Liga being kept in isolation and getting sexually abused by her father, and then gang-raped, would qualify as a deal-breaker for many a reader I guess. But I strongly recommend you keep with it!Because if the beginning, in a way, shows one aspect of fairytale tropes, brought down to gritty realism, the rest of the book explores this mixture so much further. After giving birth to two daughters, and being pushed to almost committing a horrid act, Liga suddenly finds herself in a another world. One very like the one she remembers, but friendlier, and easier. A place where everybody in the town that scared her is simply gone, and where everybody respects her and her little girls. A humble little personal paradise.Unfortunately for Liga, in the real world, Annie the mudwife is practicing witchcraft a little above her head. Trying to do a favour for her childhood lover, Dought the greedy dwarf, she opens the barriers between Liga’s world and the real one. The Bear Day ritual takes on a new meaning, new bonds are forged – and paradise is bound to be lost.Really, the simplest way of putting it is that this is a book about real people in a fairytale setting, of sorts. The storytelling has a fairytale feel to it (despite being much more unpredictable), but the dilemmas are heartfelt and tenderly explored, and the characters are three-dimensional and full of life. Full of twists and unexpected turns, it had me eagerly following it to the end.I understand this book has caused a bit of controversy. I cannot really understand why. Sure, there is sexual violence, gruesome revenge – and a few instances of people being attracted to bears. But it’s never done coldly or in speculation. I wouldn’t hesitate to give this to a teenager, despite its subject matter. My only little beef with this book is instead that it feels just a little disjointed. There’s a bit of “and then THIS happened, and the THIS, and now THIS” going on, at times making it feel a little bit like Lanagan is making it up as she goes along. It’s not quite as tightly woven as I’d liked, and one or two pretty major threads are left dangling at the end, I feel. Still, this is beautiful, original writing, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in fantasy with a fairytale twist.
    • 3/5
      When I read the book description it sounded like writing for young readers but I found a lot of the content to be very adult (incest, gang rape, overall sexual content). I enjoyed the visuals the book created but it trails off a bit in the middle and I felt a bit lost, with the changing of narrators and move between the two worlds. It was comparable to reading a long book only to find it was a dream sequence.
    • 3/5
      This is my review of Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan for the AWW 2012 challenge.Scrolla ner, så kan du läsa på svenska.I loved her language. I found it poetic and challenging ( in a good way). I was a bit worried that the violence and the sexuality stuffs I read about in various reviews would put me off, but that wasn´t a problem for me. Certainly there are some violent and sexual parts in the story but the author wash´t too explicit about it I think. Much of it is up to the reader to imagine - which of course isn´tvery pleasant, but it has it´s part in the story.I loved the first half of the novel, but after that I was beginning to feel a bit bored. I lost interest in it and I didn´t got hooked again. I´m not sure though this has to do with the novel. I think it has more to do with me... You know how sometimes a book is read at the wrong time.Nevertheless I´m impressed by her way of writing.There´s been a discussion on this being an YA book or not and I think the answer to that more or less reflect your own view of what defines an YA novel.First, I think that to give this novel the label YA - novel is to diminish it. This is a novel for all lovers of literature, fantasy and fairytales and there is a risk that readers may exclude this from there reading list because of the label and that is a shame. Next, the label YA can (wrongly) for some readers be taken as a guarantee that the novel does not include violent, sexual or other difficult matters. These are issues that many people struggle with not the least young adults so if this is what YA means then this of course is not an YA book.
    • 4/5
      Wow. Graphic but touching. I don't know how else to put it. And the ending is the kind of ending you always ask, "why don't authors ever make the end like this?" But then you get it and you think, "Why!?! Really! Why must it end this way!?!"
    • 5/5
      The best book I've read in ages! An amazing story, beautifully told. Her descriptions, characters, plot twists and the language itself all make this a fantastic book.
    • 2/5
      I am nearly always a fan of retellings of classic fairy tales. Nearly always. Honestly, I can't say whether I hated this novel or loved it. It certainly is not a novel for just anyone, and I definitely don't think it's appropriate for the younger side of the Young Adult age range. In fact, I'm pretty sure the themes in this book (incest (forced), more rape, hints of bestiality, forced abortions, suicide contemplation, sodomy (again...forced), gang rape...) make it way too intense for the younger set and is perhaps a touch too over the top for some adults. That said...Liga is a character you want to see persevere. You want to see her thrive and live and just -be- with no further atrocities committed against her. My heart really did ache for her. That's really the only reason I kept reading - I did have to find out what happened to the poor girl.I think that though Lanagan tended toward overly detailed and graphic scenes in some cases (namely the rape, forced abortions, other sexual encounters) and added in a ton of superfluous verbiage, the bones of the story were good. There are some scenes in the book that are just a real delight to read so I am definitely glad I didn't give up after the first two chapters. Some of the characters are incredibly well thought out (and some not) and I think the interplay between characters and personalities was well done. The dialogue was a bit stilted and not entirely believable, but it wasn't completely horrible either. All in all, I think a few more editing sessions would have ironed things out nicely.Hopefully without giving away too much, I will say that I absolutely hated the ending of the book. Really? After all that? Ugh. It was so incredibly unfulfilling. As far as recommending this book to anyone - no, I absolutely would not. I'm not the squeamish type when it comes to reading tough topics and I'm absolutely not one to say a book should just disappear from the shelves, but the world would not be worse for it if Tender Morsels simply ceased to exist.
    • 4/5
      From my blog:I can’t believe I actually liked Tender Morsels; 75 pages in, I was convinced that I would hate it. However, it turned out to be quite a good book, although it is uncomfortable to read. (side note: I actually have an autographed hardcover of this book, having chanced upon a remnant of a recent signing in Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, IL.)Tender Morsels is generally advertised as a retelling of the Snow White and Rose Red fairy tale, and it does live up to that. It follows a mother and her two daughters, one quiet and one impetuous, and they do encounter a bear. I think that the fairy tale retelling almost does the book a disservice, since the phrase “fairy tale retelling” raises so many different expectations for the reader. I didn’t see how the evocation of the Snow White and Rose Red story was important to the book, but that’s probably something I’m missing, rather than a fault of the book.The protagonists of the story are Liga, and her two daughters Branza and Urdda. Liga’s first fifteen years of life are quite horrible, she’s is subjected to constant rape, forced abortions and infanticide from her father, all while being totally sheltered from the outside world. After his death, she is left pregnant and becomes an outcast in her town, and is also treated poorly. (This forms the first 75 pages of the book, and is the reason I thought I’d hate the book.) However, her luck finally changes, and she is transported to a safe version of her world, where she raises her daughters in peace. The rest of the book tells of her journey back to the world where she’s from and how she learns to cope with events from her life and trust people again. Her daughters’ stories and fates are also explored.SPOILERS FOLLOWLiga’s story is ultimately sad and heartbreaking, and I wish the book hadn’t ended the way it had, with Liga’s disappointment. I understand that that was a consequence of Liga having spent twenty five years in her safe world, rather than learning to live with the truth about humanity, however unintended that was. It keeps with the somber tone of the issues the book addresses, but It doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking. I was glad that Branza and Urdda were able to get a good ending, though.I was also made uncomfortable by the controversial “rape as vengeance” scene, but that seemed to be the intent. It also fits in with the tone of the book, though, and I understand why it was there.SPOILERS ENDOverall, an uncomfortable but thought-provoking book, and one I’m glad I read.
    • 1/5
      I rarely if ever choose to not finish a book, but I made an exception for this one. After the first few pages, I told my husband I did not like the book. I needed to read it though because it is a Young Adult novel and I am a YA librarian.After 160 pages of forcing myself to read and it just did not get any better, I quit! I think there were three different worlds intersecting, but I am not completely sure. I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, so the different worlds was not an issue. They just didn't make sense in this book.I originally picked up the book based on a recommendation from a blog I follow. I wish I could remember which one, so I would know to hesitate before taking another of their recommendations.I rarely react this negatively to a book. At least I can give it the compliment of saying it elicited a strong reaction.
    • 4/5
      I am quite conflicted after reading this book. On the one hand, it was certainly well-written and thought provoking. On the other hand, the content was of such a disturbing nature that I was constantly shocked by what I read. Perhaps this does make it, if not a good book, certainly an interesting one.I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I picked up this book. I was wandering around an airport during a 10 hour layover, utterly bored. I saw the book and it looked entertaining. The back-cover blurb described it as a beautiful re-telling of the Grimm brothers tale of Snow White and Red Rose. I was intrigued.The book pulls you in quite quickly. Before 50 pages had passed though, I noticed something rather peculiar. I flip back a few pages, and yes....that was an abortion she just described. Wait....was she just talking about incest?!?! 100 pages in you have a brutally described gang-bang. Later, bestiality and frank talk about violent sexuality, death, and unusual relationships.When you step back however, these are all themes prevalent in the original fairytales, before Disney got a hold of them. What makes the content of the book more disturbing though is the way in which Ms. Lanagan writes. If she had written the novel in a less poetic and picturesque manner, you might have been able to write the book off as a violent and pornographic novel which has no place in literature. But she writes so beautifully and subtly that the book takes on this amazing quality that you cannot dismiss.The novel is clearly not intended for audiences that can't handle the subject manner, and do know what you're going to read before hand. However, there was something rather fascinating about the book. The characters are so nuanced, and you heart will literally break for Liga (the main character) as she endures violent tragedy after violent tragedy before struggling to raise her two daughters. Her struggle after they are grown with trusting men - understandable given her history - reads so realistic that you cannot help but shed a few tears.I have never read a book quite like this before, and it is likely I never will again. I do suggest you give this book a try though, haven taken into account my aforementioned warnings regarding the content.