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Tender Morsels
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?
436 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2007
About the author
Margo Lanagan
107 books623 followersMargo Lanagan, born in Waratah, New South Wales, is an Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction.
Many of her books, including YA fiction, were only published in Australia. Recently, several of her books have attracted worldwide attention. Her short story collection Black Juice won two World Fantasy Awards. It was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and the United Kingdom by Gollancz in 2004, and in North America by HarperCollins in 2005. It includes the much-anthologized short story "Singing My Sister Down".
Her short story collection White Time, originally published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in 2000, was published in North America by HarperCollins in August 2006, after the success of Black Juice.
Many of her books, including YA fiction, were only published in Australia. Recently, several of her books have attracted worldwide attention. Her short story collection Black Juice won two World Fantasy Awards. It was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin and the United Kingdom by Gollancz in 2004, and in North America by HarperCollins in 2005. It includes the much-anthologized short story "Singing My Sister Down".
Her short story collection White Time, originally published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in 2000, was published in North America by HarperCollins in August 2006, after the success of Black Juice.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,372 reviews
September 6, 2018
this is a book that concerns itself with damage and healing. and i think it is a very powerful book filled with Important Lessons. my only problem with it is that there are too many voices, too many characters, which i think makes for a strained and disjointed read. there were so many voices, it became hard to care about any one of them individually.this is not always a problem for me in fiction- i love sprawling narratives, but in this book, i think the real strength of perspective was found in the characters of liga and her daughters. and ramstrong. i found the other interludes to be distracting me from what i had anticipated to be the main focus of the narrative: the aftereffects of serial brutalities, and the psychological reserves to which humans resort.
i love the premise of this book. i love the cloaking of real-world atrocities in a fairy-tale shell. i think many of the best fairy-tales do that already. this one did not avoid the difficult or the painful, which is something i have become appreciative of, in australian YA fiction specifically. and i thought that in parts, it was very affecting. the scene at the end between ramstrong and liga, made me sadder than anything that had happened to her before, and it was such a wonderfully strong scene for her.this is the power of excellent women's fiction targeting a younger audience.
i think what i would have liked to have seen is this book just laid out differently. to have the "liga and her daughters" story separate from the story of noer and bullock,etc. maybe as a series of stories that interlocked but didn't necessarily interrupt the others. because while many of the themes are overlapping, in their focus on metamorphosis and the burden of humanity, and the inheritance of pain and all of that, they were not necessarily in dialogue with each other, and i felt that their intrusion lessened the emotional impact of the liga story, which i still feel was the most developed and the most important, as all others were offshoots of her actions.
i think this is a very necessary and ballsy book. and i think the ideas it explores are terrifically important. i just worry that some of it might be getting lost to readers just trying to keep the characters straight, with their relationships to each other and their distinct worlds.
all in all, it is an excellent book. i am probably being stingy with my three stars.
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i love the premise of this book. i love the cloaking of real-world atrocities in a fairy-tale shell. i think many of the best fairy-tales do that already. this one did not avoid the difficult or the painful, which is something i have become appreciative of, in australian YA fiction specifically. and i thought that in parts, it was very affecting. the scene at the end between ramstrong and liga, made me sadder than anything that had happened to her before, and it was such a wonderfully strong scene for her.this is the power of excellent women's fiction targeting a younger audience.
i think what i would have liked to have seen is this book just laid out differently. to have the "liga and her daughters" story separate from the story of noer and bullock,etc. maybe as a series of stories that interlocked but didn't necessarily interrupt the others. because while many of the themes are overlapping, in their focus on metamorphosis and the burden of humanity, and the inheritance of pain and all of that, they were not necessarily in dialogue with each other, and i felt that their intrusion lessened the emotional impact of the liga story, which i still feel was the most developed and the most important, as all others were offshoots of her actions.
i think this is a very necessary and ballsy book. and i think the ideas it explores are terrifically important. i just worry that some of it might be getting lost to readers just trying to keep the characters straight, with their relationships to each other and their distinct worlds.
all in all, it is an excellent book. i am probably being stingy with my three stars.
come to my blog!
April 17, 2012
Though I thought Tender Morsels was a fantastically-written and unbelievably well-imagined story, my first instinct is to throw my hands up in warning at any teenager (or - in fact - any adult) who might come strolling along in search of just another typical fairytale retelling. Because that's what this is in it's barest form, it is a retelling of the Brothers Grimm's tale of Rose Red & Snow White: A Grimms Fairy Tale. And don't we all just love the call of the "dark" retellings? We imagine blood and gore and perhaps sex... what I don't think the majority of people imagine is incest, gory miscarriages, gang rapes and bestiality.
I kid you not... in just the first couple of chapters we are introduced to Liga - a girl who has been repeatedly raped by her father and then forced to drink some gut-churning concoctions in order to force the abortion of any pregnancies - and we see the absolute horrors of sexual abuse she has lived through that have made her the person she later becomes. A person who is so afraid that her fear manifests into a powerful magic which allows Liga to create for herself and her daughters - Branza and Urdda - a world separate from that of reality. A world where the three of them can hide in harmony.
But Liga's attempts to shield her daughters from the cruelty of the real world ultimately fail. Branza becomes a slave to the same fears that plagued her mother, and Urdda's wild curiosity gets the better of her. After time, the border starts to blur between the real world and this magical realm of Liga's imagination.
I was utterly enthralled by the story and by the strength of Ms Lanagan's characters. Above all else, she is undoubtedly a brilliant writer. But... THIS IS NOT A YOUNG ADULT BOOK. It just isn't. Never before have I read a book so wrongly categorised. Even if teens were ready to stomach this kind of brutality and blatant sexuality, I don't think the average teenager would appreciate this kind of story anyway.
There's a lot of dark, unhealthy sexual stuff going on in Tender Morsels. I don't mind sex in books, I don't mind lots of sex in books, but even I found it hard to stomach the repeated rapes, incest and bestiality. I honestly didn't know what to think when a girl gets a sexual thrill from having a bear lick her breast... this just takes perversity to a whole new level. And was that whole thing really necessary? Hmm?
Unlike most books that I rate highly, I refuse to recommend this to anyone in particular. It is too strange and gross and disturbing for me to be confident that anyone will like it. You will have to be quite the adventurous reader and you will have to be able to cringe and move on at some of the weirdest bits. But I doubt you'll be unaffected, that's for sure. Now I'm going to go ponder what it says about me that I was unmoved by Wonder and thought this dark, rapey novel was actually really good.
March 5, 2014
Snow White and Rose Red live with their mother in a cottage. upon them comes a bear, out of the cold, into their warmth and into their lives. he stays with them a bit; they become a sort of family, until he must go away. the girls meet a strange and irritable dwarf and save him several times. he is not grateful. later, the girls come between the dwarf and the now enraged bear. the unpleasant dwarf begs the bear to eat the girls rather than his little self. can the girls' sweet spirits get them out of this mess - are the girls able to survive? they can, and they will!
a young girl's mother dies, and she is left with her horrible father in a cottage. she is repeatedly molested and impregnated by her father. it is important that you know this, that this is a part of the book and this is a part of life, for some. a young girl loses her father and is happy for a time. a group of boys come upon her, pull her down from the chimney where she has fled, and proceed to rape her. it is important that you know this, that this is a part of the book too and this is a part of life, for some. can this much-abused girl survive? she can, and she will.
a woman writer named Margo Lanagan decided to write a book about women. she would make the book a portrait of a family of women, a family that grows bigger. she would make the book a portrait of motherhood and sisterhood and daughterhood, the challenges and the wonder and the excitement of becoming, of transforming into such roles. she would make this portrait of women a part of the greater world, so there are many voices heard, even voices of men, sympathetic men and strong, kind ones too. the book does not share the voices of those who are brutal and who destroy with their brutality; they are not worthy of having their voices heard and they are not missed. well, there is a certain voice, a harder voice: the dwarf. but his story is its own kind of tale, not the story of a brutal man but rather the story of a man small in stature and in spirit, an occasionally unkind man but not a brutal one, and one deserving of some sympathy. so this woman writer would take the fable of the sisters Snow White and Rose Red, their cottage and their mother and that dwarf and the bear-who-was-a-prince, as her template. men in the shape of bears and women in the shape of women. she would spin this tale out of prose that is light as gossamer, pliant as cotton, soft as flax, sturdy as wool. prose that sings; prose that whispers. can a woman do all these things in one book, tell all these tales, and still stay true to her goals and still stay true to the myth itself? she can, and she did.
I was once a residential counselor for runaway kids. one girl in particular, I remember her well, she came from a history of sexual abuse, like many others. she fled to the house where I worked. one night she went out wandering and upon her came a group of men. they raped this girl, this girl who had already suffered so much. was she broken though? she was, for a little while. but she came back, she healed, not completely because these kinds of wounds never heal completely, but she did heal. she was young and I know that this was still the beginning of her story. could she survive this beginning, could she survive and even thrive, one day? she could, and she did.
I thought of this girl quite a bit while reading Tender Morsels, her survival. the first 50 pages were exceedingly hard for me to read, for many others to read as well. sometimes these kinds of stories need to start hard. but they don't need to stay that way, only hard, they can expand and move beyond and transform, become something different, something more than atrocity, something bright and warm and ready to embrace those who have been hurt and who long for that bright warmth. can stories that start with such terrible things remain hard - even vengeful - while also growing softer, a soft side and a hard one, side-by-side, life is all sides, can a story juggle such things, even up until its very end? it can, and it did.
a young girl's mother dies, and she is left with her horrible father in a cottage. she is repeatedly molested and impregnated by her father. it is important that you know this, that this is a part of the book and this is a part of life, for some. a young girl loses her father and is happy for a time. a group of boys come upon her, pull her down from the chimney where she has fled, and proceed to rape her. it is important that you know this, that this is a part of the book too and this is a part of life, for some. can this much-abused girl survive? she can, and she will.
a woman writer named Margo Lanagan decided to write a book about women. she would make the book a portrait of a family of women, a family that grows bigger. she would make the book a portrait of motherhood and sisterhood and daughterhood, the challenges and the wonder and the excitement of becoming, of transforming into such roles. she would make this portrait of women a part of the greater world, so there are many voices heard, even voices of men, sympathetic men and strong, kind ones too. the book does not share the voices of those who are brutal and who destroy with their brutality; they are not worthy of having their voices heard and they are not missed. well, there is a certain voice, a harder voice: the dwarf. but his story is its own kind of tale, not the story of a brutal man but rather the story of a man small in stature and in spirit, an occasionally unkind man but not a brutal one, and one deserving of some sympathy. so this woman writer would take the fable of the sisters Snow White and Rose Red, their cottage and their mother and that dwarf and the bear-who-was-a-prince, as her template. men in the shape of bears and women in the shape of women. she would spin this tale out of prose that is light as gossamer, pliant as cotton, soft as flax, sturdy as wool. prose that sings; prose that whispers. can a woman do all these things in one book, tell all these tales, and still stay true to her goals and still stay true to the myth itself? she can, and she did.
I was once a residential counselor for runaway kids. one girl in particular, I remember her well, she came from a history of sexual abuse, like many others. she fled to the house where I worked. one night she went out wandering and upon her came a group of men. they raped this girl, this girl who had already suffered so much. was she broken though? she was, for a little while. but she came back, she healed, not completely because these kinds of wounds never heal completely, but she did heal. she was young and I know that this was still the beginning of her story. could she survive this beginning, could she survive and even thrive, one day? she could, and she did.
I thought of this girl quite a bit while reading Tender Morsels, her survival. the first 50 pages were exceedingly hard for me to read, for many others to read as well. sometimes these kinds of stories need to start hard. but they don't need to stay that way, only hard, they can expand and move beyond and transform, become something different, something more than atrocity, something bright and warm and ready to embrace those who have been hurt and who long for that bright warmth. can stories that start with such terrible things remain hard - even vengeful - while also growing softer, a soft side and a hard one, side-by-side, life is all sides, can a story juggle such things, even up until its very end? it can, and it did.
May 5, 2010
Evidently, Tender Morsels is a modern retelling of Brothers Grimm's fairy tale Rose Red and Snow White: A Grimms Fairy Tale. If I have to look for an analogy among better known fairy tale retellings, Tender Morsels is closer in its audacity to Anne Rice's version of Sleeping Beauty - The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty than to Robin McKinley's Spindle's End. Is Tender Morsels a remarkable work of literature? Yes. Does it cross the boundaries of what is YA appropriate? Yes, again.
Liga has had an awful childhood and young adulthood. In fact so awful, that she is now resolved to end her life and life of her newborn daughter. As she is about to jump off a cliff, she is magically given an opportunity to find safety and peace in her personal heaven - a place created by her own imagination, where she can live without fear, surrounded by kind people. There, years go by, Liga is safe and happy in the paradise of her own making, raising her two daughters - Branza and Urrda. But gradually the border between the real and imagined worlds starts to blur and eventually the three women have to decide if they want to stay in Liga's safe but dull and predictable world or go back to the real world, vibrant and energetic, but ugly and violent at the same time...
My first impression of the book was - I totally understand why Tender Morsels was given Printz. Margo Lanagan can definitely write. Not many authors' writing possesses the intensity and edginess of Lanagan's. And not many can cause readers so much anxiety and make their skin crawl. This book is horrifying!
Also, after thinking about the book for a while, I realized that more than anything, this fairy tale is an exploration of dissociation as a coping mechanism. Liga lives in a world of her own making trying to forget the trauma of her past, and for some time this heaven helps her to pull herself together and raise her children in the safety she has never had. But only after facing the real world and reliving her past horrors is Liga able to truly free herself of her demons.
Tender Morsels is also a remarkable examination of how a mother's fears affect the psyches of her daughters. Liga attempts to shelter Branza and Urrda from the horrors of the real world, but what she achieves is planting the same fears in her older daughter and defiance and impatience to explore the outside world in the younger.
As you can see, I liked the book and story a lot. What I do have a problem with is the classification of this book as YA. Many YA writers nowadays push the boundaries of what is appropriate for children, Lanagan I think takes it a tad too far.
For one, this book is very sexual. It is permeated with sexual themes, and more often than not the sexuality explored is not healthy, it is twisted and perverted. The majority of men portrayed in this book are sexual predators, and women are either easily available "slatterns" or unwilling sexual objects who are forcefully taken advantage of. The first lines of the book are a good indicator of the tone the book takes.
"There are plenty would call her a slut for it. Me, I was just glad she had shown me. Now I could get this embarrassment off me. Now I knew what to do when it stuck out its dim one-eyed head.
She were a revelation, Hotty Annie. I had not known a girl could feel this too. Lucky girls; they can feel it and feel it and nothing need show on the outside; they have to act all hot like Annie did, talk smut and offer herself to the lads, before anyone can tell."
But even more, the book brings up the subjects not every adult can handle. Just in the first chapter, Liga is subjected to repeated incestuous rape, experiences miscarriages and abortions, gives birth to a child and then is gang raped. And it doesn't stop there. Later on Lanagan ventures into sodomy and, I kid you not, bestiality. There is no other way to describe this scene between a girl and a bear (although he is a man in real world but manifests as bear in Liga's heaven):
"He visited once or twice more, and then she did not see him again until the spring. When she met him then, out in the woods alone, he manifested great excitement, and she was so happy to see him that she allowed him to lick and whiffle as he pleased awhile, until he combined a lick and a pawing of her shift in such a way that he got out one of her breasts. Despite her laughing protests and her pushings, he held her body to the tree he had herded her against, and he licked and licked at the rosy nipple as if it were honey licking from a cracked pot, until Branza hardly knew what to think. with the heat and strength of the sensation and the horror of the newness. Other parts of her responded that were quite far from the nipple itself and yet were connected by some cord of sensation like a string through a wooden puppet."
Now, I am an adventurous reader, but even I find it hard to take. I do not think a regular 12-year old will be able to appreciate or even understand this kind of story.
I can not fathom this book could be embraced by the mainstream YA readers. I personally found Tender Morsels a memorable book, the type of read that lingers in the back of your mind for a long time. But can I wholeheartedly recommend it to a teenager or even an adult? I am not sure...
Liga has had an awful childhood and young adulthood. In fact so awful, that she is now resolved to end her life and life of her newborn daughter. As she is about to jump off a cliff, she is magically given an opportunity to find safety and peace in her personal heaven - a place created by her own imagination, where she can live without fear, surrounded by kind people. There, years go by, Liga is safe and happy in the paradise of her own making, raising her two daughters - Branza and Urrda. But gradually the border between the real and imagined worlds starts to blur and eventually the three women have to decide if they want to stay in Liga's safe but dull and predictable world or go back to the real world, vibrant and energetic, but ugly and violent at the same time...
My first impression of the book was - I totally understand why Tender Morsels was given Printz. Margo Lanagan can definitely write. Not many authors' writing possesses the intensity and edginess of Lanagan's. And not many can cause readers so much anxiety and make their skin crawl. This book is horrifying!
Also, after thinking about the book for a while, I realized that more than anything, this fairy tale is an exploration of dissociation as a coping mechanism. Liga lives in a world of her own making trying to forget the trauma of her past, and for some time this heaven helps her to pull herself together and raise her children in the safety she has never had. But only after facing the real world and reliving her past horrors is Liga able to truly free herself of her demons.
Tender Morsels is also a remarkable examination of how a mother's fears affect the psyches of her daughters. Liga attempts to shelter Branza and Urrda from the horrors of the real world, but what she achieves is planting the same fears in her older daughter and defiance and impatience to explore the outside world in the younger.
As you can see, I liked the book and story a lot. What I do have a problem with is the classification of this book as YA. Many YA writers nowadays push the boundaries of what is appropriate for children, Lanagan I think takes it a tad too far.
For one, this book is very sexual. It is permeated with sexual themes, and more often than not the sexuality explored is not healthy, it is twisted and perverted. The majority of men portrayed in this book are sexual predators, and women are either easily available "slatterns" or unwilling sexual objects who are forcefully taken advantage of. The first lines of the book are a good indicator of the tone the book takes.
"There are plenty would call her a slut for it. Me, I was just glad she had shown me. Now I could get this embarrassment off me. Now I knew what to do when it stuck out its dim one-eyed head.
She were a revelation, Hotty Annie. I had not known a girl could feel this too. Lucky girls; they can feel it and feel it and nothing need show on the outside; they have to act all hot like Annie did, talk smut and offer herself to the lads, before anyone can tell."
But even more, the book brings up the subjects not every adult can handle. Just in the first chapter, Liga is subjected to repeated incestuous rape, experiences miscarriages and abortions, gives birth to a child and then is gang raped. And it doesn't stop there. Later on Lanagan ventures into sodomy and, I kid you not, bestiality. There is no other way to describe this scene between a girl and a bear (although he is a man in real world but manifests as bear in Liga's heaven):
"He visited once or twice more, and then she did not see him again until the spring. When she met him then, out in the woods alone, he manifested great excitement, and she was so happy to see him that she allowed him to lick and whiffle as he pleased awhile, until he combined a lick and a pawing of her shift in such a way that he got out one of her breasts. Despite her laughing protests and her pushings, he held her body to the tree he had herded her against, and he licked and licked at the rosy nipple as if it were honey licking from a cracked pot, until Branza hardly knew what to think. with the heat and strength of the sensation and the horror of the newness. Other parts of her responded that were quite far from the nipple itself and yet were connected by some cord of sensation like a string through a wooden puppet."
Now, I am an adventurous reader, but even I find it hard to take. I do not think a regular 12-year old will be able to appreciate or even understand this kind of story.
I can not fathom this book could be embraced by the mainstream YA readers. I personally found Tender Morsels a memorable book, the type of read that lingers in the back of your mind for a long time. But can I wholeheartedly recommend it to a teenager or even an adult? I am not sure...
January 3, 2019
I was in the mood for a fairy tale retelling for a fun and easy read, and I was saving "Tender Morsels" for exactly that moment. So I settled myself on the couch, sipped some tea, started reading the book, and spit out a mouthful of tea. Boy was I wrong! From the first paragraph, you are transported to a dark place that hums with cruelty and perversion. This is not an easy and fun book to read. The early chapters are filled with acts of sexual violence that feel more terrifying for being presented in folkloric style. To top it all off, your heart will break early and often while reading this book. Yet despite it all, I couldn't put it down. As I delved in further, the novel transformed from a catalog of horrors -- to a wrenching portrayal of the hardships of human existence. More so, the prose is just exquisite!
The novel is based on “Snow White and Rose Red”, but it’s not just a retelling of that tale but also a fairy tale on its own. Margo Lanagan manages to capture beautiful images in her story and creates two worlds that magically captured me. The distinct worlds: a desired and peaceful paradise; and a harsh and difficult one -- both miss elements that will make them perfect, but both of them have their own merits. I have to admit at first, looking over the difficulties of the latter world, I wished for Liga and her girls to remain in their corner of paradise. However,the story not only entangles realities of our world and dreams that many of us had or have, but it also challenges these realities and dreams.
There is a variety of points of view, and a large cast of humans and animals that are handled with great delicacy and restraint. Lanagan not only captures many emotions in her story, but also made me feel most of them. I also liked that the characters have their unique and strong voice, and I could feel them manifest it in each dialogue they have within the story. While there are elements of very distasteful psychological, physical, and sexual abuse in this book, Lanagan does her best to limit depictions of unpleasantness.
The characters grapple with the terrible damages inflicted by life and the inevitability of death -- and although there is no clean and absolute happily ever after, the book celebrates human resilience and unexpected gifts: kindness, love, healing and hope. Overall this book was haunting, heartbreaking, but also heartwarming -- proving that fairy tales are still powerful means of exploring the essence of good and evil.
The novel is based on “Snow White and Rose Red”, but it’s not just a retelling of that tale but also a fairy tale on its own. Margo Lanagan manages to capture beautiful images in her story and creates two worlds that magically captured me. The distinct worlds: a desired and peaceful paradise; and a harsh and difficult one -- both miss elements that will make them perfect, but both of them have their own merits. I have to admit at first, looking over the difficulties of the latter world, I wished for Liga and her girls to remain in their corner of paradise. However,the story not only entangles realities of our world and dreams that many of us had or have, but it also challenges these realities and dreams.
There is a variety of points of view, and a large cast of humans and animals that are handled with great delicacy and restraint. Lanagan not only captures many emotions in her story, but also made me feel most of them. I also liked that the characters have their unique and strong voice, and I could feel them manifest it in each dialogue they have within the story. While there are elements of very distasteful psychological, physical, and sexual abuse in this book, Lanagan does her best to limit depictions of unpleasantness.
The characters grapple with the terrible damages inflicted by life and the inevitability of death -- and although there is no clean and absolute happily ever after, the book celebrates human resilience and unexpected gifts: kindness, love, healing and hope. Overall this book was haunting, heartbreaking, but also heartwarming -- proving that fairy tales are still powerful means of exploring the essence of good and evil.
September 30, 2009
Full Review Link
Tender Morsels has me stumped. On the one hand, it is a lushly written novel about horrible things, and I can only marvel at Ms. Lanagan’s storytelling skills and her ability to craft such a beautifully cruel fable. On the other, I have to admit that while this book was powerful and well done, I didn’t like it. It’s with these contradictory emotions that I set out and attempt to write this review, so please, bear with me (bad pun, apologies).
This provocative young adult novel is a retelling of the brothers Grimm collected fable of Snow White and Rose Red – which is not to be confused with the other Grimm Snow White (of the wicked sorceress queen, seven dwarves and poison apples). In Snow White and Rose Red, two sisters are raised by an impoverished widow in a wooded cottage. One winter’s night, a bear knocks on their cottage door and the family invites him in, beating the snow from his thick fur and accepting him as a dear friend for every night that winter. There’s also a dwarf in this tale, who gets himself stuck in strange situations by his glorious, long white beard. The two girls help free the dwarf time and time again, but he is ever ungrateful for their meddling. The last time the girls see the dwarf, the bear is with them – and the dwarf, enraged and terrified tries to flee the hulking, angry beast. The bear eats the dwarf and thus breaks the evil enchantment that has been placed on him, for the bear is actually an ensorcelled prince, transformed into the guise of a bear after the dwarf stole his gold. Snow White marries the Prince, and Rose Red marries his brother – and they all live happily ever after.
Snow White and Rose Red free the dwarf from the clutches of a hawk
Margo Lanagan’s take on the fable is decidedly less happy. In the outskirts of a small town, Liga Longbourne lives alone with her father, who rapes and abuses her. Liga, completely estranged from the outside world under her father’s strict rule, endures this isolated, terrible life until her thirteenth year when she realizes the painful thing she’s expelling from her body is a stillborn baby. After two forced abortions from her father’s remedies (courtesy of the local mudwitch), Liga decides to hide her latest pregnancy, desperate for a companion of her own. When her father suddenly dies in an accident, she finds herself completely alone for the first time in her life, and gives birth to a beautiful, healthy and fair complexioned baby girl. Unfortunately for Liga, five town boys have seen her – without a man, with child, and therefore fair game – and they brutally rape her in her cottage. Unable to take any more cruel reality, Liga tries to kill her innocent child as an act of mercy, and then kill herself – but she’s stopped by an act of magic. To spare Liga the cold, unfair world she has lived in, the magic grants her an alternate reality where she can raise her daughters – for the gang rape has left her pregnant once more – in safety and peace. Everyone in Liga’s new world is kind and understanding, from the townspeople to the animals, and for many years she and her two daughters, the elder Branza (for her fair complexion and mild manners) and younger Urdda (for her dark coloring and wildness) live a happy, sheltered life.
Of course, things can never stay so picturesque forever. A greedy dwarf with the help of the same mudwitch of Liga’s past creates holes into Liga’s paradise world, gathering and stealing treasures to make him rich in the ‘real world’. Through the tears he has made between worlds, a man dressed as a Bear for the town’s ceremonial night stumbles through to Liga’s cottage, only he has transformed into a true Bear. “Bear” becomes a cherished friend to Liga and her two toddler daughters, and in turn, Bear falls in love with the kind and gentle mother. But one summer day, Bear disappears, stumbling back into the real world on the same night that he had disappeared, as though his time in Liga’s world has been a dream. Urdda, headstrong and eager for her own adventure, later follows the path that Bear took and years later is able to find a more powerful witch to bring Liga and Branza to her in the real world – and once again, Liga must confront the cold reality of the world she has left behind, and the consequences of raising her daughters in a dream land.
As you can see, Tender Morsels is a far cry from a bedtime story of beautiful princesses, fairy rainbows and kindred animals. Within the first 100 pages, incest, rape, and child abuse are brutally inflicted on young Liga, heroine of this novel. Some readers may take issue with the heavy subject matter, but I did not, especially since Ms. Lanagan handles this well without sensationalizing or going into graphic detail. The harsh truth is that incest, abuse and rape are realities that many young adults and teens experience, and Ms. Lanagan tackles these realities in a bold, effective way. Similarly, the quality of writing in Tender Morsels is undeniably strong. Each of the characters speaks in a unique dialect, and Ms. Lanagan’s prose is lush and evocative, conveying both beauty and pain in equal measure. More than that, Ms. Lanagan writes characters with an acute understanding of their emotions and dreams, crafting a cast that thrums with life.
When a girl of fourteen wants a thing – when she has wanted it all her conscious life; when she senses it near and bends all her hope, and all her will, and all her power to it – sometimes, sometimes her self and her desires will be of such material that worlds will move for her. Or parts of worlds, their skins particularly, will soften to her pressure, and break in a thousand small and undramatic ways, so that she may reach through, so that what seemed a wall reveals itself to be only thought of a wall, or a wall constructed of bricks of smoke, mortared with mist. There is a smell to such workings, and Urdda smelled it here and now at the rim of the bear-scent, as if someone had held a flaming brand near that bear-fur so that it began to singe and smoke and reek.
No, I certainly cannot fault Tender Morsels for any deficiency in writing – for it is a beautifully crafted story.
But, at the end of the day, for all the beauty of Ms. Lanagan’s writing and for the rich and believable characters she creates with the weary Liga, the innocent Branza and the headstrong Urdda, I simply could not like the story I was reading.
I’m of the firm belief that no subject matter is “inappropriate” for teens, or for any literature, for that matter. The weighty issues that begin Tender Morsels are not the reason why I could not connect with this book. Rather, my emotional limbo is mostly a product of two main factors – the question of stereotyping, and the question of cruelty.
First, there’s the question of stereotyping. Of the two daughters, Branza is the Snow White character – she’s pale and fair, beautiful, gentle and completely meek. Branza loves her mother’s dream world, she never causes any trouble, she’s friend to all animals, and she’s completely mild and agreeable. Then, there’s Urdda, the Rose Red character. In contrast to her fair, perfect sister, Urdda is dark complexioned (it is mentioned earlier in the book that one of the boys who gang raped Liga is a foreigner whose face looks “sooted”), and temperamental, and altogether wildness personified. She’s also the selfish sister, the one who demands to know answers and who brings her family out from their quiet, protected dream world. This dichotomy of the fair skinned diligent good girl, against the dark skinned, willful wild girl bothers me. It’s a stereotype as old as the fairy tale Tender Morsels is retelling, but translates poorly at least to me, as a reader. Branza, the white, the untainted and the dutifully unquestioning is rewarded, while Urdda with her dusky complexion and demanding, inquisitive nature is the one who suffers because of her wildness. And this too blends into my next reason for discomfort with the novel:
There’s also the question of cruelty. Not the rape and other acts inflicted upon Liga – but rather the cruelty that the author inflicts on her in the last third of the book. I could argue that the entire last third or so of the book is completely unnecessary, as this is where the book fell apart (for me). Liga is the protagonist of the story. It is with Liga’s struggles that we begin Tender Morsels, and it is by her strength in raising two girls born of horrible, unspeakable circumstances that the novel takes root and blossoms. But in the ending of the book, I cannot help but feel that a cruelty of the greatest, most unforgivable kind is enforced on Liga as a character, for purposes of literary shock value. I do not wish to explicitly spoil, but simply will say that by the end of the novel, I felt betrayed and emotionally exploited. I’m all for bittersweet stories or those with unhappy endings, but this ending was unnecessary and reenforced my discomfort with character stereotypes. Liga, for all that she has been through and endured for her daughters is still tainted, broken Liga. Her untouched daughters – especially the dutiful and pure as snow Branza – are the ones who receive the happy ending.
So, I’m at a loss to truly assign a grade or rate to Tender Morsels. The book is unquestionably powerful and well-written, but certain facets of the story left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. While I did not particularly like this book and will not in all likelihood read it again, I feel like I accomplished something by reading it. And I encourage others to give it a try, to form your own opinions.
Verdict: On an intellectual level, on an aesthetic level, Tender Morsels is a beautiful gem of a novel. It’s written well with compelling characters, and with an original take on an old fable. For that alone, I would give the novel an 8. But as for a deeper, emotional experience? I could not bring myself to like this novel, and certain simplistic stereotypes as well as the unnecessary cruelty of the ending left me feeling hollow and exploited as a reader. Going with my gut, I’d give the book an emotional rating of a 4. So where does that leave me and the novel?
I’m cheating and including both ratings – and I strongly encourage all readers to give Tender Morsels a read and to form your own opinions. I’d be delighted to read your thoughts on this provocative novel.
Rating: 8 – Excellent for the writing; 4 – Horrible for the emotional exploitation.
Tender Morsels has me stumped. On the one hand, it is a lushly written novel about horrible things, and I can only marvel at Ms. Lanagan’s storytelling skills and her ability to craft such a beautifully cruel fable. On the other, I have to admit that while this book was powerful and well done, I didn’t like it. It’s with these contradictory emotions that I set out and attempt to write this review, so please, bear with me (bad pun, apologies).
This provocative young adult novel is a retelling of the brothers Grimm collected fable of Snow White and Rose Red – which is not to be confused with the other Grimm Snow White (of the wicked sorceress queen, seven dwarves and poison apples). In Snow White and Rose Red, two sisters are raised by an impoverished widow in a wooded cottage. One winter’s night, a bear knocks on their cottage door and the family invites him in, beating the snow from his thick fur and accepting him as a dear friend for every night that winter. There’s also a dwarf in this tale, who gets himself stuck in strange situations by his glorious, long white beard. The two girls help free the dwarf time and time again, but he is ever ungrateful for their meddling. The last time the girls see the dwarf, the bear is with them – and the dwarf, enraged and terrified tries to flee the hulking, angry beast. The bear eats the dwarf and thus breaks the evil enchantment that has been placed on him, for the bear is actually an ensorcelled prince, transformed into the guise of a bear after the dwarf stole his gold. Snow White marries the Prince, and Rose Red marries his brother – and they all live happily ever after.
Snow White and Rose Red free the dwarf from the clutches of a hawk
Margo Lanagan’s take on the fable is decidedly less happy. In the outskirts of a small town, Liga Longbourne lives alone with her father, who rapes and abuses her. Liga, completely estranged from the outside world under her father’s strict rule, endures this isolated, terrible life until her thirteenth year when she realizes the painful thing she’s expelling from her body is a stillborn baby. After two forced abortions from her father’s remedies (courtesy of the local mudwitch), Liga decides to hide her latest pregnancy, desperate for a companion of her own. When her father suddenly dies in an accident, she finds herself completely alone for the first time in her life, and gives birth to a beautiful, healthy and fair complexioned baby girl. Unfortunately for Liga, five town boys have seen her – without a man, with child, and therefore fair game – and they brutally rape her in her cottage. Unable to take any more cruel reality, Liga tries to kill her innocent child as an act of mercy, and then kill herself – but she’s stopped by an act of magic. To spare Liga the cold, unfair world she has lived in, the magic grants her an alternate reality where she can raise her daughters – for the gang rape has left her pregnant once more – in safety and peace. Everyone in Liga’s new world is kind and understanding, from the townspeople to the animals, and for many years she and her two daughters, the elder Branza (for her fair complexion and mild manners) and younger Urdda (for her dark coloring and wildness) live a happy, sheltered life.
Of course, things can never stay so picturesque forever. A greedy dwarf with the help of the same mudwitch of Liga’s past creates holes into Liga’s paradise world, gathering and stealing treasures to make him rich in the ‘real world’. Through the tears he has made between worlds, a man dressed as a Bear for the town’s ceremonial night stumbles through to Liga’s cottage, only he has transformed into a true Bear. “Bear” becomes a cherished friend to Liga and her two toddler daughters, and in turn, Bear falls in love with the kind and gentle mother. But one summer day, Bear disappears, stumbling back into the real world on the same night that he had disappeared, as though his time in Liga’s world has been a dream. Urdda, headstrong and eager for her own adventure, later follows the path that Bear took and years later is able to find a more powerful witch to bring Liga and Branza to her in the real world – and once again, Liga must confront the cold reality of the world she has left behind, and the consequences of raising her daughters in a dream land.
As you can see, Tender Morsels is a far cry from a bedtime story of beautiful princesses, fairy rainbows and kindred animals. Within the first 100 pages, incest, rape, and child abuse are brutally inflicted on young Liga, heroine of this novel. Some readers may take issue with the heavy subject matter, but I did not, especially since Ms. Lanagan handles this well without sensationalizing or going into graphic detail. The harsh truth is that incest, abuse and rape are realities that many young adults and teens experience, and Ms. Lanagan tackles these realities in a bold, effective way. Similarly, the quality of writing in Tender Morsels is undeniably strong. Each of the characters speaks in a unique dialect, and Ms. Lanagan’s prose is lush and evocative, conveying both beauty and pain in equal measure. More than that, Ms. Lanagan writes characters with an acute understanding of their emotions and dreams, crafting a cast that thrums with life.
When a girl of fourteen wants a thing – when she has wanted it all her conscious life; when she senses it near and bends all her hope, and all her will, and all her power to it – sometimes, sometimes her self and her desires will be of such material that worlds will move for her. Or parts of worlds, their skins particularly, will soften to her pressure, and break in a thousand small and undramatic ways, so that she may reach through, so that what seemed a wall reveals itself to be only thought of a wall, or a wall constructed of bricks of smoke, mortared with mist. There is a smell to such workings, and Urdda smelled it here and now at the rim of the bear-scent, as if someone had held a flaming brand near that bear-fur so that it began to singe and smoke and reek.
No, I certainly cannot fault Tender Morsels for any deficiency in writing – for it is a beautifully crafted story.
But, at the end of the day, for all the beauty of Ms. Lanagan’s writing and for the rich and believable characters she creates with the weary Liga, the innocent Branza and the headstrong Urdda, I simply could not like the story I was reading.
I’m of the firm belief that no subject matter is “inappropriate” for teens, or for any literature, for that matter. The weighty issues that begin Tender Morsels are not the reason why I could not connect with this book. Rather, my emotional limbo is mostly a product of two main factors – the question of stereotyping, and the question of cruelty.
First, there’s the question of stereotyping. Of the two daughters, Branza is the Snow White character – she’s pale and fair, beautiful, gentle and completely meek. Branza loves her mother’s dream world, she never causes any trouble, she’s friend to all animals, and she’s completely mild and agreeable. Then, there’s Urdda, the Rose Red character. In contrast to her fair, perfect sister, Urdda is dark complexioned (it is mentioned earlier in the book that one of the boys who gang raped Liga is a foreigner whose face looks “sooted”), and temperamental, and altogether wildness personified. She’s also the selfish sister, the one who demands to know answers and who brings her family out from their quiet, protected dream world. This dichotomy of the fair skinned diligent good girl, against the dark skinned, willful wild girl bothers me. It’s a stereotype as old as the fairy tale Tender Morsels is retelling, but translates poorly at least to me, as a reader. Branza, the white, the untainted and the dutifully unquestioning is rewarded, while Urdda with her dusky complexion and demanding, inquisitive nature is the one who suffers because of her wildness. And this too blends into my next reason for discomfort with the novel:
There’s also the question of cruelty. Not the rape and other acts inflicted upon Liga – but rather the cruelty that the author inflicts on her in the last third of the book. I could argue that the entire last third or so of the book is completely unnecessary, as this is where the book fell apart (for me). Liga is the protagonist of the story. It is with Liga’s struggles that we begin Tender Morsels, and it is by her strength in raising two girls born of horrible, unspeakable circumstances that the novel takes root and blossoms. But in the ending of the book, I cannot help but feel that a cruelty of the greatest, most unforgivable kind is enforced on Liga as a character, for purposes of literary shock value. I do not wish to explicitly spoil, but simply will say that by the end of the novel, I felt betrayed and emotionally exploited. I’m all for bittersweet stories or those with unhappy endings, but this ending was unnecessary and reenforced my discomfort with character stereotypes. Liga, for all that she has been through and endured for her daughters is still tainted, broken Liga. Her untouched daughters – especially the dutiful and pure as snow Branza – are the ones who receive the happy ending.
So, I’m at a loss to truly assign a grade or rate to Tender Morsels. The book is unquestionably powerful and well-written, but certain facets of the story left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. While I did not particularly like this book and will not in all likelihood read it again, I feel like I accomplished something by reading it. And I encourage others to give it a try, to form your own opinions.
Verdict: On an intellectual level, on an aesthetic level, Tender Morsels is a beautiful gem of a novel. It’s written well with compelling characters, and with an original take on an old fable. For that alone, I would give the novel an 8. But as for a deeper, emotional experience? I could not bring myself to like this novel, and certain simplistic stereotypes as well as the unnecessary cruelty of the ending left me feeling hollow and exploited as a reader. Going with my gut, I’d give the book an emotional rating of a 4. So where does that leave me and the novel?
I’m cheating and including both ratings – and I strongly encourage all readers to give Tender Morsels a read and to form your own opinions. I’d be delighted to read your thoughts on this provocative novel.
Rating: 8 – Excellent for the writing; 4 – Horrible for the emotional exploitation.
October 28, 2008
Once upon a time, the skeleton of this story was called Snow-White and Rose-Red. Like all fairy tales, it left much unexplained. Too much. Well, Margo Lanagan took those bones and added muscle and guts, bracing the loose joints of the plot with her characters' emotions, motivations, and histories. That's the secret of successful retellings: fleshing out the gaps that relied almost entirely on the readers' willful ignorance or suspension of belief, yet still leaving room for the existence of magic. And Lanagan knows how to handle magic delicately enough to make it believable: Tender Morsels revolves around magical doings, but never degrades enchantment to the level of coincidence. The plot must bend to fit the whims of the magic, and never, ever the reverse. Yet the setting is so rich that it all feels impossibly real.
And the characters -- hoo, the characters. They are vivid, passionate, flawed, sometimes randy (but never gratuitous), and fiercely devoted to their hearts' desires. Desires tangled with magic, though, turn out to have more power than any one of them have bargained for.
It's been almost a week and I am still basking and soaking in this story. It is deep, thick, and heavy, but not in the ways that makes reading tiresome. It isn't a book you finish and set aside -- you surface from it and wait for it to roll off you. (I know, I know -- I'm going all purple and gushy. Plus I've overshot my adjective quota without ever managing to work in "visceral." Crap.)
An about face: I am somewhat loathe to admit this is not a book for everyone. Not by a long shot. The switching points of view, the nature of the abuse Liga weathers, and the spattering of old world Britishy-Irishy dialect each have the potential to deter a number of readers.
However, if you loved the themes of sweetness and brutality in The Giver, the robust characters and setting of The Moorchild, and the emotional tone of Donna Jo Napoli's fairy tale-based novels, I'd lay odds you'll be content to envelop yourself for a few days in Tender Morsels. It is quite possibly THE best reading experience I've had so far this year.
And the characters -- hoo, the characters. They are vivid, passionate, flawed, sometimes randy (but never gratuitous), and fiercely devoted to their hearts' desires. Desires tangled with magic, though, turn out to have more power than any one of them have bargained for.
It's been almost a week and I am still basking and soaking in this story. It is deep, thick, and heavy, but not in the ways that makes reading tiresome. It isn't a book you finish and set aside -- you surface from it and wait for it to roll off you. (I know, I know -- I'm going all purple and gushy. Plus I've overshot my adjective quota without ever managing to work in "visceral." Crap.)
An about face: I am somewhat loathe to admit this is not a book for everyone. Not by a long shot. The switching points of view, the nature of the abuse Liga weathers, and the spattering of old world Britishy-Irishy dialect each have the potential to deter a number of readers.
However, if you loved the themes of sweetness and brutality in The Giver, the robust characters and setting of The Moorchild, and the emotional tone of Donna Jo Napoli's fairy tale-based novels, I'd lay odds you'll be content to envelop yourself for a few days in Tender Morsels. It is quite possibly THE best reading experience I've had so far this year.
Read
February 6, 2022“It is not safe. But it is what you were born to.”
So What’s It About?
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?
CW for rape (specifically gang rape, incestual rape and anal rape), miscarriage and bestiality.
What I Thought
Occasionally, I have a reading experience where I just know that the book is going to stay with me for a very, very long time. This was my experience with Tender Morsels - I haven’t read anything that is so simultaneously beautiful and painful in a long time. It has some of the most masterful prose I’ve read in a long time, as well as a truly unique take on the fairytale of Snow White and Rose Red that explores trauma in a fascinating way.
Liga is the heart of the story to me, and I can barely describe what it meant to me to read about her journey. This starts with her early awakening out of the perpetual endurance of pain and trauma in her newly-created heaven where she loves her babies, keeps them safe, and cautiously interacts with gentle people who pose no threat and hold no maliciousness. It continues with her return to the real world, where she has to grapple with the reality of what has happened to her and the complexity of living in a world that is both good and bad. Liga is at the story’s periphery through much of the middle of the book; I think this is because her heaven numbs to her real emotions of horror at what has happened to her and grief and fear at the loss of Urdda. I was the most engaged with the story when it was focused on her, and I'll be honest that her story’s ending made me cry harder than possibly any other book ending I’ve read. In short, she starts to develop tremulous feelings for Davit and believes that he is going to ask to marry her, but he instead asks to marry her daughter Branza. She reverts back to self-loathing for her furtive hopes but quickly resigns herself and ends the book in a place of quiet peace. It is really the best example of an exquisitely painful bittersweet ending I’ve ever read. I still think about it all the time.
Liga’s story is one about the time we lose to trauma and the way that dissociation keeps you safe at the same time that it keeps you stuck and unable to engage in life in a real and vital way. What I love about Tender Morsels’ exploration of this topic is how nuanced it is. On one hand, Liga is a wonderful mother to her girls and provides them with an upbringing filled with beauty and safety. At the same time, their world isn’t a real and true one until they leave the heaven. You can hide away from the world and sometimes that’s exactly what you need, but in doing so you are missing out on something vital and real with a capacity to hurt you but just as much of a capacity to be wonderful in a way that is lacking in a static state of existence.
The mother and daughters all have such complex feelings about leaving their heaven - Liga regrets the way she sheltered her daughters and Urdda is remorseful for taking her mom from the place that brought her peace and safety. Branza misses the heaven terribly and can’t stand the brutality of the real world, but thanks to Miss Dance, she starts to understand it better. Sometimes when you protect yourself and people you care about, you bring them a different form of pain at the same time.
While Liga was my favorite character, I also loved the old crone Annie, wise Miss Dance and Urdda and Branza and their respective struggles to adapt to the real world. They have both been raised without shame and bring something radical and new to a world where women usually learn that shame as they grow up.
I understand why Davit’s and Collaby’s perspectives were a part of the story but I can’t help but feel that they contributed much less to the story than the perspectives belonging to Urdda, Liga and Branza. I think I could have entirely done without the part of the story about Bullock and Noer and all their bear-related grief and longing. I think the story might have been even stronger to me if it had been a bit streamlined in this regard.
I also think I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss the way that Urdda unintentionally uses her magic to create shadow creatures that rape Liga’s rapists in turn. Annie seems to think that this equates to justice for Liga, but I was willing to believe that this did not necessarily equate to the book and author intending it to be justice until I read Margo Lanagan’s afterward Q&A. She essentially stated that she chose to have the rapists be raped in turn so that readers would be satisfied with the conclusion to this particular aspect of the story. I’m sure there is a wide variety of feeling on this topic and I respect that others may have different opinions, but retributive rape is hardly my personal idea of restorative justice, and it’s hard for me to look past the author’s sense that it would be satisfying to readers.
My final topic of discussion is that this book is...kind of a lot, with incestual rape and gang rape, miscarriage, and beastiality. Plenty of other reviewers seem to question whether it’s appropriate to label it as YA; I don’t necessarily think that teenage readers are too immature to handle the book’s contents, but I just don’t really know why it is marketed as such instead of being categorized as adult fantasy.
So What’s It About?
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?
CW for rape (specifically gang rape, incestual rape and anal rape), miscarriage and bestiality.
What I Thought
Occasionally, I have a reading experience where I just know that the book is going to stay with me for a very, very long time. This was my experience with Tender Morsels - I haven’t read anything that is so simultaneously beautiful and painful in a long time. It has some of the most masterful prose I’ve read in a long time, as well as a truly unique take on the fairytale of Snow White and Rose Red that explores trauma in a fascinating way.
Liga is the heart of the story to me, and I can barely describe what it meant to me to read about her journey. This starts with her early awakening out of the perpetual endurance of pain and trauma in her newly-created heaven where she loves her babies, keeps them safe, and cautiously interacts with gentle people who pose no threat and hold no maliciousness. It continues with her return to the real world, where she has to grapple with the reality of what has happened to her and the complexity of living in a world that is both good and bad. Liga is at the story’s periphery through much of the middle of the book; I think this is because her heaven numbs to her real emotions of horror at what has happened to her and grief and fear at the loss of Urdda. I was the most engaged with the story when it was focused on her, and I'll be honest that her story’s ending made me cry harder than possibly any other book ending I’ve read. In short, she starts to develop tremulous feelings for Davit and believes that he is going to ask to marry her, but he instead asks to marry her daughter Branza. She reverts back to self-loathing for her furtive hopes but quickly resigns herself and ends the book in a place of quiet peace. It is really the best example of an exquisitely painful bittersweet ending I’ve ever read. I still think about it all the time.
Liga’s story is one about the time we lose to trauma and the way that dissociation keeps you safe at the same time that it keeps you stuck and unable to engage in life in a real and vital way. What I love about Tender Morsels’ exploration of this topic is how nuanced it is. On one hand, Liga is a wonderful mother to her girls and provides them with an upbringing filled with beauty and safety. At the same time, their world isn’t a real and true one until they leave the heaven. You can hide away from the world and sometimes that’s exactly what you need, but in doing so you are missing out on something vital and real with a capacity to hurt you but just as much of a capacity to be wonderful in a way that is lacking in a static state of existence.
The mother and daughters all have such complex feelings about leaving their heaven - Liga regrets the way she sheltered her daughters and Urdda is remorseful for taking her mom from the place that brought her peace and safety. Branza misses the heaven terribly and can’t stand the brutality of the real world, but thanks to Miss Dance, she starts to understand it better. Sometimes when you protect yourself and people you care about, you bring them a different form of pain at the same time.
While Liga was my favorite character, I also loved the old crone Annie, wise Miss Dance and Urdda and Branza and their respective struggles to adapt to the real world. They have both been raised without shame and bring something radical and new to a world where women usually learn that shame as they grow up.
I understand why Davit’s and Collaby’s perspectives were a part of the story but I can’t help but feel that they contributed much less to the story than the perspectives belonging to Urdda, Liga and Branza. I think I could have entirely done without the part of the story about Bullock and Noer and all their bear-related grief and longing. I think the story might have been even stronger to me if it had been a bit streamlined in this regard.
I also think I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss the way that Urdda unintentionally uses her magic to create shadow creatures that rape Liga’s rapists in turn. Annie seems to think that this equates to justice for Liga, but I was willing to believe that this did not necessarily equate to the book and author intending it to be justice until I read Margo Lanagan’s afterward Q&A. She essentially stated that she chose to have the rapists be raped in turn so that readers would be satisfied with the conclusion to this particular aspect of the story. I’m sure there is a wide variety of feeling on this topic and I respect that others may have different opinions, but retributive rape is hardly my personal idea of restorative justice, and it’s hard for me to look past the author’s sense that it would be satisfying to readers.
My final topic of discussion is that this book is...kind of a lot, with incestual rape and gang rape, miscarriage, and beastiality. Plenty of other reviewers seem to question whether it’s appropriate to label it as YA; I don’t necessarily think that teenage readers are too immature to handle the book’s contents, but I just don’t really know why it is marketed as such instead of being categorized as adult fantasy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 27, 2012
I need to think about the rating and review for novel. It has me flummoxed in a way I haven’t been over a book before.
While I was trawling Melbourne bookstores for a copy (which was a saga in itself) I had a discussion with a bookseller about Tender Morsels. In passing, I mentioned the brouhaha it had been caught up in a while ago, (along with several other novels), over its inclusion a feminist YA reading list. The subsequent fallout and discussion made for interesting reading, specifically where it touched on the various interpretations of Tender Morsels and it’s undeniably difficult content.
However, the bookseller just shrugged, as if the storm in an internet teacup was hardly worth deigning to notice.
“Margo Lanagan,” he said, “is an artist.”
Having now finished Tender Morsels, I’m not going to argue with that.
I’m not sure I have ever read a book like this, a chimera of the beautiful and the repulsive. While part of my mind was entangled in the lush, complex writing, part of me felt uneasy and troubled (which is a credit to Lanagan, who unsettles the reader masterfully).
Is it art? Undoubtedly.
Am I in awe of it? Completely.
Did I like it? I don’t know.
Full review to come.
* * * *
Huzzah! Success! *throws confetti* Now to readalong with Miss Leanne.
* * * *
I've been running backwards and forwards across Melbourne to hunt a copy of this down..
Elusive book, you will be mine!
While I was trawling Melbourne bookstores for a copy (which was a saga in itself) I had a discussion with a bookseller about Tender Morsels. In passing, I mentioned the brouhaha it had been caught up in a while ago, (along with several other novels), over its inclusion a feminist YA reading list. The subsequent fallout and discussion made for interesting reading, specifically where it touched on the various interpretations of Tender Morsels and it’s undeniably difficult content.
However, the bookseller just shrugged, as if the storm in an internet teacup was hardly worth deigning to notice.
“Margo Lanagan,” he said, “is an artist.”
Having now finished Tender Morsels, I’m not going to argue with that.
I’m not sure I have ever read a book like this, a chimera of the beautiful and the repulsive. While part of my mind was entangled in the lush, complex writing, part of me felt uneasy and troubled (which is a credit to Lanagan, who unsettles the reader masterfully).
Is it art? Undoubtedly.
Am I in awe of it? Completely.
Did I like it? I don’t know.
Full review to come.
* * * *
Huzzah! Success! *throws confetti* Now to readalong with Miss Leanne.
* * * *
I've been running backwards and forwards across Melbourne to hunt a copy of this down..
Elusive book, you will be mine!
February 12, 2012
Tender Morsels is a modern retelling of Grimms’ Snow White and Rose Red. Liga had a painful past and was magicked away to another world where she was safe and could raise her two daughters free of violence and the small-mindedness of the villagers in the town she once inhabited. Once the security of their safe world was breached, Liga and her daughters had to learn to adapt to living in the real world.
Beautifully written, rich, disturbing, compelling, yet hopeful, with vividly drawn characters whose tragic and joyful lives fully engage the emotions.
One of my favorite passages shows Liga’s daughter, Branza’s quiet way with animals:
“Branza tried to stay as still as a cabbage. Her body swayed very slightly and her insides rushed and thumped with excitement, her breath gusting, her eyelashes swishing as she blinked. Her body was like a storm gathered into itself over the hare, putting out a very narrow, silent finger of lightning. She crouched huge and dangerous, brimful of her five human years and growing all the time, and the hare had seemingly forgotten what a thunderous presence she was, had come and put its delicate furred self, its veiny ears that would tear like rags, its jittery bones, at her mercy.”
Beautifully written, rich, disturbing, compelling, yet hopeful, with vividly drawn characters whose tragic and joyful lives fully engage the emotions.
One of my favorite passages shows Liga’s daughter, Branza’s quiet way with animals:
“Branza tried to stay as still as a cabbage. Her body swayed very slightly and her insides rushed and thumped with excitement, her breath gusting, her eyelashes swishing as she blinked. Her body was like a storm gathered into itself over the hare, putting out a very narrow, silent finger of lightning. She crouched huge and dangerous, brimful of her five human years and growing all the time, and the hare had seemingly forgotten what a thunderous presence she was, had come and put its delicate furred self, its veiny ears that would tear like rags, its jittery bones, at her mercy.”
August 2, 2021
I've read many interesting books in my time, but few as surreal, haunting or beautiful as Tender Morsels – an unflinching meditation on trauma and healing, spun into a fairy tale as dense and sharp as briar. Lanagan confronts a number of difficult topics frankly, but with care.
October 20, 2011
I have to admit that the thing that first attracted me to this book was the wonderful cover art. However, for once, it appears that I was right to judge a book by its cover. Tender Morsels is a retelling of the Snow White and Rose Red story and, as fairytales go, it is decidedly of the Brothers Grimm variety, dark, vivid and brutal, so do not expect it to be full of sunshine, rainbows and unicorns.
When we meet the main character, Liga, she is 13 years old, living with her father in a lonely hut at the edge of a dark forest and she is having a miscarriage, though she is not yet capable of understanding what is happening to her. In very short order, we learn that Liga is being raped by her father and see her suffering through a number of miscarriages induced by concoctions purchased by the father from a local "mudwife", giving birth to a child resulting from the repeated incestuous rape and then being raped again by a group of town boys. Unable to deal with the trauma of her experiences, Liga attempts suicide but is rescued by a magical "moon babby" and granted her own version of heaven, where she and her two daughters (the second being but a foetus in her womb at that stage) can be safe.
The main theme of this book is one of sexual violence, the effect it has and the process of coping with, surviving and healing from it. Liga's coping mechanism is denial. She escapes to an imaginary world where nothing can harm her, everything is pleasant and even her feelings themselves are muted to a point where she cannot feel any strong emotions at all. But the real world cannot be avoided indefinitely and by ignoring what happened to her, Liga is unable to effectively deal with or move past her experiences. Her world is a safe cocoon, devoid of anything dangerous or unpleasant, but it is also a fake world, devoid of real people or emotions and while it shields Liga from harm, it also means that she is unable to fully experiences life's joys.
"How soft had been her life in that other place, how safe and mild! And here she was, back where terrors could immobilize her, and wonders too; where life might become gulps of strong ale rather than sips of bloom-tea. She did not know whether she was capable of lifting the cup, let alone drinking the contents."As a parent, I found this theme of living in the real world and facing up to all of its aspects, good and bad, and the damage that over-protecting and cotton wool wrapping can do very interesting. Lanagan's message is quite clear:
"…you are a living creature, born to make a real life, however it cracks your heart. However sweet that other place was, it was not real. It was an artifact of your mam's imagination; it was a dream of hers and a desire; you could not have stayed there forever and called yourself alive. Now you are in the true world, and a great deal more is required of you. Here you must befriend real wolves, and lure real birds down from the sky. Here you must endure real people around you, and we are not uniformly kind; we are damaged and impulsive, each in our own way. It is harder. It is not safe. But it is what you were born to."It also plays into the debate about whether or not this book is suitable for a young adult audience to which it has been marketed in the US and UK. Personally, I think that it is quite clear that the book was not written as a children's book. There are certainly references and description that a younger audience will not be able to understand fully or relate to, but does that mean that teenagers should not read it? I don't think so.
However much we may wish otherwise, sexual violence is a part of our world, and it is not within our power to completely shield our children from it. This book is a tender and sensitive contemplation of the damage that sexual violence can do and the emotional impact it has on a person and, despite its subject matter, it is never graphic in its descriptions. The violence is not gratuitous, is not at any point glorified and is not there simply to shock. So, my personal view is that this book is appropriate for teens.
Frankly, I am far more appalled at articles like this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/art... which liken the book to "emotional pornography".
Unlike the author of that article, I do not believe children's literature (and let me just pause a second there to note that the word "children" is highly emotionally charged and the book is in fact being marketed at "young adults" rather than 5 year olds) needs to concern itself solely with "singing dwarves and a comedy cruel queen, followed by an innocent peck on the cheek by a handsome prince". Like Ms Lanagan, I do think that trying to hide the real world from your children is likely to do more harm than good and do not feel nostalgic about children's publishing as "a world that used to be a peaceful haven from the sordid realities against which most of us would rather shield our children". Our children these days are constantly bombarded with images of sex and violence and I would much rather my daughter learned about them by reading a beautifully written, tender and gentle book than by watching the sensationalist news coverage of cases such as that of Elizabeth Fritzl or through "smutty playground banter".
Tender morsels is not an easy book and it is not perfect. The middle did drag and I did find the multiple narratives distracting at times and there is a dearth of positive male characters (even Ramstrong, in the end is insensitive and small-minded, at the very least). Yet I found it richly rewarding and loved it despite all those things. I loved Lanagan's prose, so vivid and full of flavour, and the way there are no easy answers or straightforward consequences and even the way it left me feeling so cut up and tender that I am convinced that we as readers are the real tender morsels of the title.
June 1, 2010
I actually had no expectations of this book. I suppose, since I already knew about a few of the more disturbing things about this book, that I was already prepared to face it.
What I wasn't prepared for was how utterly bored I'd be. It was quite infuriating really. There were many characters I severely disliked and the plot was very awkward.
I made it about half way through the book before I threw my hands up in disgust and gave up. It just didn't seem to be going anywhere!
So I really can't give it an honest review but the themes of violence, abuse, sexual assault and the heavy usage of bestiality were simply too awkward and gross for me to continue reading.
I fully understand that this is a retelling of a fairytale, however I really didn't enjoy the revelling in the gore that it did. It felt kind of cheap when you're already working with such controversial material to then almost glorify it as I felt Lanagan often did then I think it cheapens the whole work.
What I wasn't prepared for was how utterly bored I'd be. It was quite infuriating really. There were many characters I severely disliked and the plot was very awkward.
I made it about half way through the book before I threw my hands up in disgust and gave up. It just didn't seem to be going anywhere!
So I really can't give it an honest review but the themes of violence, abuse, sexual assault and the heavy usage of bestiality were simply too awkward and gross for me to continue reading.
I fully understand that this is a retelling of a fairytale, however I really didn't enjoy the revelling in the gore that it did. It felt kind of cheap when you're already working with such controversial material to then almost glorify it as I felt Lanagan often did then I think it cheapens the whole work.
September 20, 2019
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.
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.
June 7, 2015
Wow. That was harsh. No, worse than harsh, that was brutal. I am wretched, shattered, ausgespielt even. Have to give credit to the Germans for such an onomatopoeic word for how this feels. Yay, Germans.
It’s 4:30 am, I’m on my 5th cup of coffee and trying to counteract the caffeine shakes with graham crackers, my eyes are bleary, words blurring, my jaw is clenched, throat sore and there’s a hollow space above my rib cage, I think that’s my soul.
Wow. I did not think that this was going to be like this. I thought what a sort of lovely fairy tale; my fellow goodreaders have recommended it, why not. But this, this was like a story your mom might tell you as you curl into her lap, feeling all safe and sound wrapped in a Grimm Brother’s morality lesson, then drenched in a Thomas Hardy tragedy.
Now that I’ve set the mood, let’s talk.
“The earth’s lungs, coated in green ooze and thaw, breathed out blossom-scent and sour rot and fungus-must, wet and warm and aware, where before the air had been cold and blind, remote as the moon.”
Exactly.
Life can be cold and blind. We all have our grievances, our wrongs, some are trivial, some truly heinous, but the emotion is there nonetheless (is that too many commas in one sentence? Whatever. Carry on.) I am not going to tell you the plot, but I’m going to relate my feelings about the events and do with it what you will, this is MY space.
I totally get the feeling of wanting to escape. The pain is too much, the work is too hard, the results are too little. I cannot blame Liga for wanting to create her own heart’s desire, her version of heaven and wanting to stay in that zone and raise her daughters free from all the harm that befell her. Yes, I say, BRING ON THE SHEEP FARM FROM BABE (without all the heavy like farm work, of course). Liga was totally screwed. Good for her. Let the boring safe life prevail. Score one for Team Liga.
And yet…. It can’t last. Right? The pumpkin returns, the apple is eaten, Heathcliff is actually an asshole. ‘There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start.’ –Sorry Shel, we aren’t even worthy of that.
Yes, we have happy times but they are almost always dwarfed by misfortune. This book will give you so many great starts that will just devastate you. And this is why I love it. It’s real. It’s got magical worlds, and sorcery and true love and then it just tears you a new one.
“Now you are in the true world, and a great deal more is required of you. Here you must befriend real wolves, and lure real birds down from the sky. Here you must endure real people around you, and we are not uniformly kind; we are damaged and impulsive, each in our own way. It is harder. It is not safe. But it is what you were born to.”
Suck that. You know what really gets me? The give and take. It’s never equal is it? I might be speaking from not such a great place and who knows, next week I might be bitch slapping myself for writing this, but yeah, I feel like I’ve been dealt a crappy hand. I have wonderful children, I have daily laughs, not always the belly type, but still good moments, but it’s a constant struggle and why is that? Why can’t we sometimes just get a break, you know?
Liga, I get it. I wish to be your conduit. I wish to take all the injustices dealt to you and let you be truly happy. Don’t be happy for someone else, there’s a time and a place for that, I know.. but just for you. The last line of the book kills me because it just seems so unfair:
“They all looked to Liga, seated by the window with her face to the light, to the faint midsummer air, which moved the tendrils of hair at her temples. She turned and slightly smiled at them all, and titled her head most graciously, accepting the witch’s, and the woolman’s compliments, and her daughters’ pleasure in them, as no more than she deserved.”
Ugh. Martyrs. I’m so done with it.
January 6, 2009
This has gotten fantastic reviews, but I think it's horribly overwritten. In addition, the only people reading this, as far as I can tell, are librarians. I've talked three teens into checking it out, and the farthest any of them made was halfway through.
May 12, 2018
3.5 stars
After I read Margo Lanagan’s “Black Juice,” I thought that Margo Lanagan’s “Tender Morsels” was going to be a horrible read. However, I was quite impressed with how improved the plot and characters are in this book are from “Black Juice.” “Tender Morsels” is a Printz Honor Book by Margo Lanagan and it is about how a suffering woman named Liga is mysteriously sent to a world where everything is perfect and friendly and raises her two daughters, Branza and Urdda, in this heaven. However, when wild bears and tiny men come to Liga’s heavenly world, Liga and her two daughters realized that there is another world different from the world they live in. “Tender Morsels” might be too dark and upsetting for some readers to handle, but the fantasy elements of this book might enchant some readers.
I must admit that after I read “Black Juice,” I thought that this book was going to be no better. However, I was surprised at how much improved this book was in character development and plot development than in “Black Juice.” Margo Lanagan has done an excellent job at making this story extremely dramatic and somewhat frightening as the characters, especially Liga, go through a series of horrifying events that will have many readers cringing at the description of these events and many readers will definitely feel sympathy for the main character Liga as she goes through so many horrendous situations during her life. Also, readers who love dark fantasy elements will definitely enjoy this book as there is a good amount of fantasy elements dealing with other world barriers and has an extremely dark tone to the story that would intrigued many readers.
There are three main issues that I had with this book and they included strong violence, some rape scenes and confusing narration. There are many violent scenes in this book that readers who are sensitive to violence might not be able to handle and these violent scenes include a brutal murder scene, which I will not go into too much detail since I do not want to spoil the book for people who want to read this book, but the violence is extremely graphic as Margo Lanagan goes into great detail about how one of the characters is murdered. Also, there are two rape scenes in this book that many readers (including myself) who do not approve of rape scenes might not be able to handle. The issue that really stood out the most in this book is the narration as the story switches from Liga’s perspective to the bear’s perspective on the story and that will confuse many readers. Liga’s side of the story is pretty straightforward and the characters are well developed and the plot is more interesting, however whenever we get to the bear’s side of the story, there are several different characters speaking on their experiences as the bear character and it is extremely frustrating to read through since you do not know which character is speaking their tale.
“Tender Morsels” is an interesting tale about the dangers of reality versus fantasy worlds and many readers who are fans of dark fantasy books will definitely love this book. I gave this book three and a half stars because the violence is extremely graphic and the narration is a bit too frustrating to read through as it constantly switches from Liga’s story to the bear’s story and I would have gladly just stick with Liga’s side of the story since her story is much more understanding and interesting than the bear’s side of the story.
Review is also on: Rabbit Ears Book Blog
December 5, 2008
So far, it is horrible. By page 50, the main character has been raped multiple times by at least six different men, one being her father. She has been pregnant two different times, both her father's children.
After I wrote this review, I tried to continue but just couldn't. I didn't finish the book - I stopped on page 83. If someone actually gets through it and likes it, let me know!
After I wrote this review, I tried to continue but just couldn't. I didn't finish the book - I stopped on page 83. If someone actually gets through it and likes it, let me know!
April 17, 2015
what an interesting book. i imagine 50 or 100 years from now, if liberal arts education is not laughed off university campuses, students of English lit might actually be studying this one.
it's that layered, yep.
about halfway through i realized i was reading something i have run across so rarely: a book where men don't actually matter much. i've read a zillion books where women were just plot devices, getting things kicked off or causing a plot twist. in these cases the men of the story were individuals, pretty much, but the women were interchangeable: the Vamp who sets Plot Twist B into motion is indistinguishable, really, from any other Vamp; the Lover could be any woman within the demographic, and so on.
i'm not criticizing these books, understand--for one thing, authors really do sometimes have a hard time writing opposite-sex characters, and sometimes it just doesn't really matter.
but it feels much rarer to run across a book where the male characters are plot devices, and the women genuinely the focus. not women-in-relation-to-men, but just... women as women. as mothers, sisters, daughters.
it was a kind of enchantment there, for a while.
but of course one cannot live forever in a world without men, nor should one want to. and the books is not advocating such. and many of the men who come back are far finer than the ones who kicked the plot into motion.
the work is full of vocabulary-based felicities--the author apparently loves playing with language, and it pays off. the characters ramble between mythic and painfully or poignantly real; the style from fairy tale to some pretty gritty and stomach-turning scenes of abuse and violence. it's not as if the author were creating some mash-up of styles and genres, it's as if she saw where the edges of reality and magical reverie grind against one another like tectonic plates, and wrote from that space.
the book is not without flaws, but damn, it's pretty close.
it's that layered, yep.
about halfway through i realized i was reading something i have run across so rarely: a book where men don't actually matter much. i've read a zillion books where women were just plot devices, getting things kicked off or causing a plot twist. in these cases the men of the story were individuals, pretty much, but the women were interchangeable: the Vamp who sets Plot Twist B into motion is indistinguishable, really, from any other Vamp; the Lover could be any woman within the demographic, and so on.
i'm not criticizing these books, understand--for one thing, authors really do sometimes have a hard time writing opposite-sex characters, and sometimes it just doesn't really matter.
but it feels much rarer to run across a book where the male characters are plot devices, and the women genuinely the focus. not women-in-relation-to-men, but just... women as women. as mothers, sisters, daughters.
it was a kind of enchantment there, for a while.
but of course one cannot live forever in a world without men, nor should one want to. and the books is not advocating such. and many of the men who come back are far finer than the ones who kicked the plot into motion.
the work is full of vocabulary-based felicities--the author apparently loves playing with language, and it pays off. the characters ramble between mythic and painfully or poignantly real; the style from fairy tale to some pretty gritty and stomach-turning scenes of abuse and violence. it's not as if the author were creating some mash-up of styles and genres, it's as if she saw where the edges of reality and magical reverie grind against one another like tectonic plates, and wrote from that space.
the book is not without flaws, but damn, it's pretty close.
July 20, 2010
Tender Morsels is a hard book to review. I wanted to like it sooo much! After all, I like the writing, the world Margo Lanagan created, the magic and even the disquieting nature of the story. I've always had a fascination with the older, more violent and more disturbing versions of Grimms fairytales, so this book seemed to be right up my alley. Unfortunately, it had too many issues for me to over look.
What comes to mind, first and foremost is the fact that this book is geared towards young adults, yet is filled with sexuality that is negative and misogynistic. Let me begin by saying I am one of the rare people who believes that different types of sexuality and sexual experiences, both positive and negative belong in YA literature. I realize this topic will always be controversial, as there are many people who think to shield teens from their own sexuality or even any knowledge of sex as something other than wedded procreation. However, sex is a part of life, and as such I don’t believe that it should be removed from YA books. Not to promote teen promiscuity, but isn’t exploration and knowledge through reading fairly harmless? As a teen, I was frustrated at not being able to find anything in my small town, Ohio library that was racier than Judy Blume ~ and I had read all of her books by the time I was 11 or 12. I remember turning to a local used bookstore that sold lots of bestsellers from the late 60’s and early 70’s ~ I loved those novels about the sexual revolution. Free love, drug use, fighting the establishment, lol! Even though those novels were certainly outdated by the time I read them in the late 80’s, they were so, well… groovy =) And I always thought it was funny that books published so long ago were so much more liberal than current books I was able to find.
My point is simply that, discovering your own sexuality and learning about both good and bad sexual experiences is a part of growing up. If kids really want to find out about something, they will. And, really if Lanagan wants to fill her books with incest, gang rape, forces miscarriages, misogyny, and even bestiality, that is Ok. What is NOT Ok is that she filled her young adult book with all of these horrible things, yet did not include a single example of a normal sexual act, or healthy sexual expression. Granted, Lanagan’s writing and some of the language she uses is so obscure that younger readers will probably not grasp the entire meaning. Even so, I believe that a young adult author who fills a book with such bad things has a responsibility to balance the bad with the good. Tender Morsels is filled with men who seem to hate women and take advantage of them at every available opportunity. There is never a point when the women in the book strike out against these men, seek revenge or vengeance. Justice is never sought, let alone found. Rather, the women simply learn to get along as best they can in their world. What sort of message is that to teach young girls??? I don’t believe in censorship, and I really don’t believe that a writer has any responsibility to their audience. However, Lanagan has chosen to write about some of the worst experiences a woman can have (I’m talking about the miscarriage/abortion, rape and incest here ~ not even touching the bear thing!!!) and since she is writing for such a young audience, I think it is deplorable that she has not deemed it necessary to include a single example of a good, healthy sexual relationship.
In addition to the above ickiness, the whole book was a bit of a mess, organization wise. I’ve said before that I am not a fan of multiple POV. Tender Morsels is simply all over the place. The story starts by introducing us to Annie in her teen years, but quickly moves on to Liga as a 13 or 14 year old girl. Liga seems to be the main character as the book follows her throughout at her life, yet as soon as her two daughters, Branza and Urdda are born, the focus is more on them than on Liga herself. In addition, we continue to hear from Annie, her acquaintance Dought, the first bear/family man Ramstrong, and another bear/man, Bullock. The stories of Dought, Ramstrong, and Bullock are all very interesting but their points of view don’t add to the main story of Liga and her daughters. Bullock especially, considering he never even meets the women. His story is interesting and tells the reader more about the world Lanagan has created, but it would have been better to read in its own novella or companion book. Besides being muddled by too many people telling the story, many of these characters were underdeveloped. Even though they appear interesting, Lanagan does not give them depth or show their growth.
My final complaint is with the victimization of Liga. The book begins with her being horribly abused. She goes on to find solace by withdrawing from the world, but bravely confronts her fears later in life. Just when we think Liga will finally find peace and happiness Lanagan gives her one final bitch slap at the end that came completely out of nowhere. But of course Liga quickly learns to accept the situation for what it is and find her own happiness from within… blah!
As I said, this is a book that I really, really wanted to love. Had it been Lanagan’s first effort, I might be more interested in pursuing her future works. But this book was so chaotic and at 400+ pages, the story seems to have gotten away from her. I still may check out her short stories but full length novels? Forget it.
What comes to mind, first and foremost is the fact that this book is geared towards young adults, yet is filled with sexuality that is negative and misogynistic. Let me begin by saying I am one of the rare people who believes that different types of sexuality and sexual experiences, both positive and negative belong in YA literature. I realize this topic will always be controversial, as there are many people who think to shield teens from their own sexuality or even any knowledge of sex as something other than wedded procreation. However, sex is a part of life, and as such I don’t believe that it should be removed from YA books. Not to promote teen promiscuity, but isn’t exploration and knowledge through reading fairly harmless? As a teen, I was frustrated at not being able to find anything in my small town, Ohio library that was racier than Judy Blume ~ and I had read all of her books by the time I was 11 or 12. I remember turning to a local used bookstore that sold lots of bestsellers from the late 60’s and early 70’s ~ I loved those novels about the sexual revolution. Free love, drug use, fighting the establishment, lol! Even though those novels were certainly outdated by the time I read them in the late 80’s, they were so, well… groovy =) And I always thought it was funny that books published so long ago were so much more liberal than current books I was able to find.
My point is simply that, discovering your own sexuality and learning about both good and bad sexual experiences is a part of growing up. If kids really want to find out about something, they will. And, really if Lanagan wants to fill her books with incest, gang rape, forces miscarriages, misogyny, and even bestiality, that is Ok. What is NOT Ok is that she filled her young adult book with all of these horrible things, yet did not include a single example of a normal sexual act, or healthy sexual expression. Granted, Lanagan’s writing and some of the language she uses is so obscure that younger readers will probably not grasp the entire meaning. Even so, I believe that a young adult author who fills a book with such bad things has a responsibility to balance the bad with the good. Tender Morsels is filled with men who seem to hate women and take advantage of them at every available opportunity. There is never a point when the women in the book strike out against these men, seek revenge or vengeance. Justice is never sought, let alone found. Rather, the women simply learn to get along as best they can in their world. What sort of message is that to teach young girls??? I don’t believe in censorship, and I really don’t believe that a writer has any responsibility to their audience. However, Lanagan has chosen to write about some of the worst experiences a woman can have (I’m talking about the miscarriage/abortion, rape and incest here ~ not even touching the bear thing!!!) and since she is writing for such a young audience, I think it is deplorable that she has not deemed it necessary to include a single example of a good, healthy sexual relationship.
In addition to the above ickiness, the whole book was a bit of a mess, organization wise. I’ve said before that I am not a fan of multiple POV. Tender Morsels is simply all over the place. The story starts by introducing us to Annie in her teen years, but quickly moves on to Liga as a 13 or 14 year old girl. Liga seems to be the main character as the book follows her throughout at her life, yet as soon as her two daughters, Branza and Urdda are born, the focus is more on them than on Liga herself. In addition, we continue to hear from Annie, her acquaintance Dought, the first bear/family man Ramstrong, and another bear/man, Bullock. The stories of Dought, Ramstrong, and Bullock are all very interesting but their points of view don’t add to the main story of Liga and her daughters. Bullock especially, considering he never even meets the women. His story is interesting and tells the reader more about the world Lanagan has created, but it would have been better to read in its own novella or companion book. Besides being muddled by too many people telling the story, many of these characters were underdeveloped. Even though they appear interesting, Lanagan does not give them depth or show their growth.
My final complaint is with the victimization of Liga. The book begins with her being horribly abused. She goes on to find solace by withdrawing from the world, but bravely confronts her fears later in life. Just when we think Liga will finally find peace and happiness Lanagan gives her one final bitch slap at the end that came completely out of nowhere. But of course Liga quickly learns to accept the situation for what it is and find her own happiness from within… blah!
As I said, this is a book that I really, really wanted to love. Had it been Lanagan’s first effort, I might be more interested in pursuing her future works. But this book was so chaotic and at 400+ pages, the story seems to have gotten away from her. I still may check out her short stories but full length novels? Forget it.
February 23, 2009
After enduring many unspeakable cruelties, Liga is granted a magical safe haven to live in and raise her two daughters. They live in this alternate reality free from anyone or anything cruel or unkind. Others begin to find ways of entering this magic haven and soon the barrier between the two worlds begins to break.
I heard so much praise about this book that I was very eager to read it. Unfortunately, this book turned out to be one that I did not enjoy at all and really probably should have stopped reading.
Tender Morsels takes the story of Snow White and Rose Red and turns it into something crude and grotesque. Child molestation, and gang rape against both male and female characters are just two examples of the events that left me feeling sick after reading. Pretty much all of the male characters could think of nothing but getting into the pants or skirts of women and I had to read about it over and over and over again. I got tired of reading about all these horny guys and bears. Yes, bears.
I've read so much praise describing this book as beautiful and moving but I found nothing beautiful at all and the story just grew tedious the more I read.
A book that is loved by many but that I found disturbing and uncomfortable to read.
I heard so much praise about this book that I was very eager to read it. Unfortunately, this book turned out to be one that I did not enjoy at all and really probably should have stopped reading.
Tender Morsels takes the story of Snow White and Rose Red and turns it into something crude and grotesque. Child molestation, and gang rape against both male and female characters are just two examples of the events that left me feeling sick after reading. Pretty much all of the male characters could think of nothing but getting into the pants or skirts of women and I had to read about it over and over and over again. I got tired of reading about all these horny guys and bears. Yes, bears.
I've read so much praise describing this book as beautiful and moving but I found nothing beautiful at all and the story just grew tedious the more I read.
A book that is loved by many but that I found disturbing and uncomfortable to read.
July 20, 2012
This is a truly extraordinary book, and one that lingers in the mind for a long time afterwards. The language is astonishingly good – bold, original, unexpected – and the story itself takes all kinds of surprising directions. I really think it’s going to be one of the best books of the year (OK, OK, I know it was published in 2008, but sometimes it takes me a while to get to a book!) It’s only occasionally that I finish a book with a real sense of awe, but this book delivered me that. If you haven’t read it yet, read it now. Then let’s talk about it. I’m dying to talk to someone about it!
Read
August 5, 20095 stars for language -- Margo Lanagan can WRITE. I was constantly impressed by the beauty and uniqueness of the prose, while not being sucked out of the story by it. But while I found the story intriguing, poignant, and imaginative, I never had that breathless "what happens next?" feeling or felt truly, deeply invested in the outcome or the characters. Still, it's a lovely book.
March 6, 2009
I want to recommend this book to survivors, but I must clarify lest they pick it up thinking my recommendation means it is safe to read. Do not read this without a support system in place, if you have even ever once had a flashback.
The book starts out with an accurate and well-described incest and rape situation involving a young teen and her widower father. It is realistic, not otherworldly, though set in the Middle Ages somewhere. He soon dies, but it's still a very realistic treatment of the death of one's abuser. She is then alone, and raped again, by town boys. She sets off to kill herself (and the baby her father left her) but magic happens. Her world is changed into a fantastic, magical one, like out of Harry Potter or something.
My impression of this turn of events was that she had gone off to that world where we go when something horrible is happening to us, and she had failed to come back. She had lost it, lost the string that leads us back to the one-foot-on-front-of-another world we dwell in when we're not being hurt, lost reality. I found this terrifying. The author could have done a better job of indicating that the protagonist's new and newly wonderful world was real, and not a figment of her imagination. I wished she had; I was shaking from the fearsomeness of it.
But as I read on, as the reality of the wonderfulness of her world sunk in, a thought began to play in the corners of my mind. What if it was real? What if such extremely good, fantastically wonderful things did happen in a world where we well know such extremely bad, repugnantly unmentionable things happen?
So the two worlds I have known began, as I read, to sew themselves up together into one. That is why I recommend it to survivors. The book is most definitely a vessel for healing, as cliche as it sounds, a hopeful one, too, not the sort that attempts to comfort by convincing us, who already know too well, that these things did happen and were that bad.
The book starts out with an accurate and well-described incest and rape situation involving a young teen and her widower father. It is realistic, not otherworldly, though set in the Middle Ages somewhere. He soon dies, but it's still a very realistic treatment of the death of one's abuser. She is then alone, and raped again, by town boys. She sets off to kill herself (and the baby her father left her) but magic happens. Her world is changed into a fantastic, magical one, like out of Harry Potter or something.
My impression of this turn of events was that she had gone off to that world where we go when something horrible is happening to us, and she had failed to come back. She had lost it, lost the string that leads us back to the one-foot-on-front-of-another world we dwell in when we're not being hurt, lost reality. I found this terrifying. The author could have done a better job of indicating that the protagonist's new and newly wonderful world was real, and not a figment of her imagination. I wished she had; I was shaking from the fearsomeness of it.
But as I read on, as the reality of the wonderfulness of her world sunk in, a thought began to play in the corners of my mind. What if it was real? What if such extremely good, fantastically wonderful things did happen in a world where we well know such extremely bad, repugnantly unmentionable things happen?
So the two worlds I have known began, as I read, to sew themselves up together into one. That is why I recommend it to survivors. The book is most definitely a vessel for healing, as cliche as it sounds, a hopeful one, too, not the sort that attempts to comfort by convincing us, who already know too well, that these things did happen and were that bad.
January 21, 2009
At first, Tender Morsels drew me in, but the middle kind of lost me (it seemed a little tedious to me).
Lately, I've been hearing "If you don't like a book, put it down. There are too many other good books out there you could be reading."
But I'm not very good at that. If I see the tiniest bit of merit in a book, I'll keep plugging away. And I saw that in this book. The end did actually pull me back in, but mainly because it did a good job of tying up all the loose ends and revealing what happened to all of the characters.
What's it about? A woman named Liga, whose life has had so many horrible cruelties visited upon it that she's granted her own "heaven" - a town similar to the one she lived in, but with none of the things that previously bothered her. Mean people? Out. Ale houses? Out. Even her ramshackle cottage is repaired and becomes a lovely place to live. But the other people who inhabit this world are merely shadows of those in the real world.
There she raises two daughters, but as they get older rifts occur between her heaven and the real world, allowing them to overlap. And one of her daughters isn't satisfied with the sanitized heaven. She wants more.
Sounds good, right? I thought so, too. Mainly in the beginning and the end.
Lately, I've been hearing "If you don't like a book, put it down. There are too many other good books out there you could be reading."
But I'm not very good at that. If I see the tiniest bit of merit in a book, I'll keep plugging away. And I saw that in this book. The end did actually pull me back in, but mainly because it did a good job of tying up all the loose ends and revealing what happened to all of the characters.
What's it about? A woman named Liga, whose life has had so many horrible cruelties visited upon it that she's granted her own "heaven" - a town similar to the one she lived in, but with none of the things that previously bothered her. Mean people? Out. Ale houses? Out. Even her ramshackle cottage is repaired and becomes a lovely place to live. But the other people who inhabit this world are merely shadows of those in the real world.
There she raises two daughters, but as they get older rifts occur between her heaven and the real world, allowing them to overlap. And one of her daughters isn't satisfied with the sanitized heaven. She wants more.
Sounds good, right? I thought so, too. Mainly in the beginning and the end.
November 10, 2018
I'd set this luminous reworking of the fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red" on the shelf beside Terry Pratchett's wonderful fable
Nation
,
except this book is much angrier and might scorch Nation's cover a bit.
For readers who like their fairy tales and feminism well-muscled and well-thought-out. Margo Lanagan here reiterates her status as a Force for Good in the World and focuses her retelling on what happens next. Her heroines refuse to stay victims, and her heroes reveal themselves as reluctant but sincere masters of empathy.
Only the fabulous Lanagan would include psychological insights on what it's like to actually be a boy transformed into a bear, and how you might later miss bear life and need to seek solance among other former bears.
This book was marketed as YA and won a Printz YA honor award on publication. But that's misleading: if you base your reading list on trigger warnings, you should probably pass this one by for its frank but lovely scenes More troubling (and meant to be) are the scenes of The book's darkness is more than redeemed by its optimism and its characters' resilience. Although not everyone gets a happy ending.
except this book is much angrier and might scorch Nation's cover a bit.
For readers who like their fairy tales and feminism well-muscled and well-thought-out. Margo Lanagan here reiterates her status as a Force for Good in the World and focuses her retelling on what happens next. Her heroines refuse to stay victims, and her heroes reveal themselves as reluctant but sincere masters of empathy.
Only the fabulous Lanagan would include psychological insights on what it's like to actually be a boy transformed into a bear, and how you might later miss bear life and need to seek solance among other former bears.
This book was marketed as YA and won a Printz YA honor award on publication. But that's misleading: if you base your reading list on trigger warnings, you should probably pass this one by for its frank but lovely scenes More troubling (and meant to be) are the scenes of The book's darkness is more than redeemed by its optimism and its characters' resilience. Although not everyone gets a happy ending.
April 21, 2009
Cross-posted from my blog E.M.Reads.
After 200 pages of Tender Morsels I just can't continue. I mean I'm half way there and I just can't plow through. I'm searching for the plausible chain of events that binds the plot. I understand that this is fantasy and plausibility isn't exactly necessary, but I need to be able to tie together these events with some semblance of belief. After 200 pages I just feel disconnected from the story. I'm sure in the last 50 pages Ms. Lanagan will tie all of the bear shagging, gang raping, and “littlee man” together, but I'm lost and I'm not willing to invest any more time.
I think what most readers enjoy about this book is the writing, but I've read the words "overwritten" in a couple reviews and I'm borderline thinking that myself. I enjoy great writing, sometimes I enjoy pretentious writing, but I have to buy the plot at the same time. All that to say, I've never quit a book… until today. This is a library book and I feel guilty putting another reserve on this after I've had it 6 weeks and haven't finished. I give up.
After 200 pages of Tender Morsels I just can't continue. I mean I'm half way there and I just can't plow through. I'm searching for the plausible chain of events that binds the plot. I understand that this is fantasy and plausibility isn't exactly necessary, but I need to be able to tie together these events with some semblance of belief. After 200 pages I just feel disconnected from the story. I'm sure in the last 50 pages Ms. Lanagan will tie all of the bear shagging, gang raping, and “littlee man” together, but I'm lost and I'm not willing to invest any more time.
I think what most readers enjoy about this book is the writing, but I've read the words "overwritten" in a couple reviews and I'm borderline thinking that myself. I enjoy great writing, sometimes I enjoy pretentious writing, but I have to buy the plot at the same time. All that to say, I've never quit a book… until today. This is a library book and I feel guilty putting another reserve on this after I've had it 6 weeks and haven't finished. I give up.
April 16, 2011
Yes, the first 50 pages are exceptionally brutal. I was reading them on the subway during rush hour and my hands were shaking.
Yes, there are a lot of different voices—a third-person narrative interspersed with three (maybe four?) first-person accounts of strange occurrences that intrude upon the third-person sections. But I never really lost the thread of the story.
And yes, there are some scenes that dance on the edge of bestiality, when a female bear somehow becomes a convincingly appropriate object of sexual desire (never thought I’d use that particular combination of words).
But!!!
But there are also moments of absolute truth and emotional resonance so powerful it’s like hearing a tuning fork tuned to the specific frequency of your heart. Moments like this one, one of the first-person accounts of a character named Ramstrong, one of the few kind-hearted men in this novel:
“I remember when Anders were born, how all on a sudden I was joined to everything. When, as a bear, I flew across the country and I saw the pattern we all belong to, well, that was a momentary thing, and the sight faded behind my later adventures; but when my first son were handed to me—I remember, I thought I had never held linen so clean, nor been in a morning so absolutely new—the pattern came clear again, but this time, rather than flying above it and seeing it whole, I fit into it and was right down here on the hearth and against the beat of it, my face in the warmth. I felt the house of it all around me.”
Some fiction picks you up and gives you the aerial perspective of things, showing you the pattern of interactions between people and institutions and behaviors using omniscient narrators and giving the reader information well in advance of the characters. But this is a novel that brings you right up to the face of the people within it in all their smelly horribleness, their ecstatic exuberance, and their sincere, loving kindness.
It was a bit of an emotional struggle to get through, but it really is one of the best fantasy novels, and one of the best novels about being a human, that I’ve read in a long long time.
Yes, there are a lot of different voices—a third-person narrative interspersed with three (maybe four?) first-person accounts of strange occurrences that intrude upon the third-person sections. But I never really lost the thread of the story.
And yes, there are some scenes that dance on the edge of bestiality, when a female bear somehow becomes a convincingly appropriate object of sexual desire (never thought I’d use that particular combination of words).
But!!!
But there are also moments of absolute truth and emotional resonance so powerful it’s like hearing a tuning fork tuned to the specific frequency of your heart. Moments like this one, one of the first-person accounts of a character named Ramstrong, one of the few kind-hearted men in this novel:
“I remember when Anders were born, how all on a sudden I was joined to everything. When, as a bear, I flew across the country and I saw the pattern we all belong to, well, that was a momentary thing, and the sight faded behind my later adventures; but when my first son were handed to me—I remember, I thought I had never held linen so clean, nor been in a morning so absolutely new—the pattern came clear again, but this time, rather than flying above it and seeing it whole, I fit into it and was right down here on the hearth and against the beat of it, my face in the warmth. I felt the house of it all around me.”
Some fiction picks you up and gives you the aerial perspective of things, showing you the pattern of interactions between people and institutions and behaviors using omniscient narrators and giving the reader information well in advance of the characters. But this is a novel that brings you right up to the face of the people within it in all their smelly horribleness, their ecstatic exuberance, and their sincere, loving kindness.
It was a bit of an emotional struggle to get through, but it really is one of the best fantasy novels, and one of the best novels about being a human, that I’ve read in a long long time.
Read
February 18, 2009This book began with 50 straight pages of the adolescent protagonist being sexually abused, first by her father, and then, after his death, by men from her village. It was stomach-churning. While I understand that this sort of abuse went on quite commonly both today and in the past (I think this was supposed to be set in the Early Modern Period, but not sure exactly), I don't enjoy reading about it in my leisure time. Making people aware of the need to help abused children does not need to involve wallowing in the details.
December 1, 2008
Paul Bowles once said that his wife Jane had difficulty writing because she couldn't do it the easy way like everyone else, but was forced to reinvent everything from scratch. In a way, Tender Morsels feels exactly like this kind of reinvention: nothing comes easily, or proceeds in the accepted and comfortable direction. Description, characterization, dialogue, point of view and narrative are fractured in interesting, inventive and often startling ways.
This is, of course, also a reinvention of a fairy tale, one of my favorite tales when I was a child in fact, Snow White and Rose Red. Under Lanagan's guidance, this becomes a powerful fable of the female experience in a man's world, of the aftermath of abuse and rape, and the far-reaching consequences of even the most seemingly inconsequential actions.
It took me a long time to read, but this book was worth it.
This is, of course, also a reinvention of a fairy tale, one of my favorite tales when I was a child in fact, Snow White and Rose Red. Under Lanagan's guidance, this becomes a powerful fable of the female experience in a man's world, of the aftermath of abuse and rape, and the far-reaching consequences of even the most seemingly inconsequential actions.
It took me a long time to read, but this book was worth it.
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