Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For anyone who has read this book, the beginning is the absolute worst.

Not that it is badly written or boring. Hell no. It's all the incest, forced abortion, rape, and attempted suicide.

By the way, this is a YA. My inner critic was cursing and carrying on and wondering how the hell I could get through this freaking grimdark nightmare.

And then it lightened up. Got magical. Got heavenly. Sometimes it even got humorous. And then it became a retelling of Snow White. With the magicked prince that is a bear. And then it became a different kind of story. One about healing. About redemption. About power. And about finding one's way in the world. Or worlds. Or within timelines, dreamlands, and Fae-ish realms.

There's a lot of characters in here, and I won't deny that I didn't care for some and always perked up for others, but reading about the dwarf was always particularly interesting. He's not a nice man but he's not a complete tool like some we encountered.

This is not an easy book to read. Emotionally. The text is quite beautiful. But damn, this fable holds no punches.

View all my reviews