Book Bitching

With a martini glass half-full with a pink champagne tasting faintly of strawberries in one hand, I curled up by our toasty gas fireplace with my cat and spent my New Year’s Eve in the most perfectly agreeable manner I can imagine - finishing up a great fantasy novel by an author I can already tell I’m going to become hooked on. The book was Deerskin by Robin McKinley, the first novel of hers that I’ve read. And it’s about time, too! I’ve been hearing wonderful things about her for years, and have been meaning to pick up something of hers for just as long. My high expectations were rewarded! The story was based off of the French fairy tale, “Donkeyskin” , by Charles Perrault, though McKinley definitely takes the fable to a whole new level.

The book starts off in the familiar, sing-songy rhythm of a classic fairy-tale, featuring as its main character a princess, the daughter of a great, noble king and his queen, “the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms”. The light tone quickly takes a turn for the darker, though, as horrific and violent events force the princess, Lissar, to flee her homeland. Accompanying her is her only true friend, her loyal “fleethound” (greyhound equivalent), Ash. Their journey is one of despair, hope, and ultimately bittersweet healing. And did I mention there’s some truly elegantly styled central fantasy aspects - goddesses, myths, magic - in there as well? It’s not a hard-core fantasy, but rather these constituents are slipped in, so as not to detract from the focus of the story, and only really come into play at the novel’s conclusion. Which was, by the way, an utterly satisfying one for me, even if the sudden major role of magic was a bit jarring in the final two chapters or so.

Deerskin started out slowly, but by the final sixth of the book, I was forbidding people to speak or even be in the same room as me until I finished it, as the story’s crescendo was so compelling and intense, I wanted nothing to distract me from it. There may possibly have even been an operatic “SHUSH” from me at one point, but I don’t know, the details are fuzzy. All in all, I’d give Deerskin four out of five stars - and I’m very stingy with my stars, mind you. I can’t wait to read more of McKinley’s works, and think that Sunshine will be the next one I pick up.