Tender Morsels

An astonishing novel, with an opening that is both harrowing and upsetting. Liga is abused first by her father abd then, after his death, a group of boys. On the verge of suicide, she is granted a safe haven to raise her two daughters in peace and safety. The real wold intrudes, howver, and one of her daughters longs for escape. In rich, earthy, rhythmic prose, Lanagan reworks the Grimm fairy tale into a meditation on suffering and consolation, freedom and restriction. Funny, horrifying, bittersweet and uplifting, this is a major piece of literature, Young Adult or otherwise.

This is one of those “push through the initial misery” books. The opening is truly disturbing. Even though Lanagan (thankfully) doesn’t go into detail, the first fifty pages with their descriptions of the girl Liga being kept in isolation and getting sexually abused by her father, and then gang-raped, would qualify as a deal-breaker for many a reader I guess. But I strongly recommend you keep with it!

Because if the beginning, in a way, shows one aspect of fairytale tropes, brought down to gritty realism, the rest of the book explores this mixture so much further. After giving birth to two daughters, and being pushed to almost committing a horrid act, Liga suddenly finds herself in a another world. One very like the one she show more remembers, but friendlier, and easier. A place where everybody in the town that scared her is simply gone, and where everybody respects her and her little girls. A humble little personal paradise.

Unfortunately for Liga, in the real world, Annie the mudwife is practicing witchcraft a little above her head. Trying to do a favour for her childhood lover, Dought the greedy dwarf, she opens the barriers between Liga’s world and the real one. The Bear Day ritual takes on a new meaning, new bonds are forged – and paradise is bound to be lost.

Really, the simplest way of putting it is that this is a book about real people in a fairytale setting, of sorts. The storytelling has a fairytale feel to it (despite being much more unpredictable), but the dilemmas are heartfelt and tenderly explored, and the characters are three-dimensional and full of life. Full of twists and unexpected turns, it had me eagerly following it to the end.

I understand this book has caused a bit of controversy. I cannot really understand why. Sure, there is sexual violence, gruesome revenge – and a few instances of people being attracted to bears. But it’s never done coldly or in speculation. I wouldn’t hesitate to give this to a teenager, despite its subject matter. My only little beef with this book is instead that it feels just a little disjointed. There’s a bit of “and then THIS happened, and the THIS, and now THIS” going on, at times making it feel a little bit like Lanagan is making it up as she goes along. It’s not quite as tightly woven as I’d liked, and one or two pretty major threads are left dangling at the end, I feel. Still, this is beautiful, original writing, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in fantasy with a fairytale twist. show less

A disturbing fairy tale in the style of the Brothers Grimm. After being routinely raped and abused by her father, Liga is given a magical gift from a fey stranger. She wakes up in a world where all her fantasies have come true. She goes on to raise her two children in a world that doesn't condemn them for the way in which they were conceived. But what will happen when her children long for a real world? Beautifully written and brilliantly original this tale will twist your heart and enchant you mind. Lovely!

Very rarely does a book of such high quality twist my stomach into knots. Tender Morsels is definitely one of the most disturbing books I have read, but it is also a triumph in the beauty of modern fairy tales.

After undergoing tremendous amounts of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse from a number of men, fifteen year old Liga, along with her two infant daughters, magically transports herself to the world of her heart's desire. Here she rears her daughters in a land where the men are distant, shy, and respectful. Years later, however, Liga's world comes crashing down when Urdda disappears and a witch arrives, disrupting Liga's precious dream and forcing her to step back into the real world with all its hardships and memories.

Fifteen-year-old Liga has suffered terrible abuse, sexual and otherwise, at the hands of her father. When he dies, she experiences a brief period of relief, only to find herself subjected to still more suffering in the form of a brutal rape by five young men who regard a girl alone as an easy target. Hurt and full of despair, she goes into the woods with the intention of committing suicide, only to encounter an unexpected magic that sends her into another world, a world free of danger, fear, and unkindness, where she can raise the two daughters who resulted from her abuse in peace. But that world is not exactly real, and it is not possible to stay there forever.

Although you wouldn't guess it from that description, this is based on the show more fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red." (Not to be confused with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," which is an entirely different story, featuring six more dwarfs than this one.) It's an odd fairy tale, really, and it perhaps makes for a bit of an odd novel, but it's an absorbing one. It's very well written, with compelling characters and a subtle sense of fairy tale enchantment, and by the end I found it rather emotionally affecting. But it's also a disturbing story, full of distressing events. Needless to say, those who find descriptions of sexual assault and related horrors unbearable to read should stay away. Those scenes generally aren't exactly graphically depicted, but, man, they don't need to be. And the novel's constant depiction of men -- of most men -- as dangerous sexual predators is deeply depressing, and, for me, at least, almost got to be a little too much. show less

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, show more 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. show less

From my blog:

I can’t believe I actually liked Tender Morsels; 75 pages in, I was convinced that I would hate it. However, it turned out to be quite a good book, although it is uncomfortable to read. (side note: I actually have an autographed hardcover of this book, having chanced upon a remnant of a recent signing in Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, IL.)

Tender Morsels is generally advertised as a retelling of the Snow White and Rose Red fairy tale, and it does live up to that. It follows a mother and her two daughters, one quiet and one impetuous, and they do encounter a bear. I think that the fairy tale retelling almost does the book a disservice, since the phrase “fairy tale retelling” raises so many different expectations show more for the reader. I didn’t see how the evocation of the Snow White and Rose Red story was important to the book, but that’s probably something I’m missing, rather than a fault of the book.

The protagonists of the story are Liga, and her two daughters Branza and Urdda. Liga’s first fifteen years of life are quite horrible, she’s is subjected to constant rape, forced abortions and infanticide from her father, all while being totally sheltered from the outside world. After his death, she is left pregnant and becomes an outcast in her town, and is also treated poorly. (This forms the first 75 pages of the book, and is the reason I thought I’d hate the book.) However, her luck finally changes, and she is transported to a safe version of her world, where she raises her daughters in peace. The rest of the book tells of her journey back to the world where she’s from and how she learns to cope with events from her life and trust people again. Her daughters’ stories and fates are also explored.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Liga’s story is ultimately sad and heartbreaking, and I wish the book hadn’t ended the way it had, with Liga’s disappointment. I understand that that was a consequence of Liga having spent twenty five years in her safe world, rather than learning to live with the truth about humanity, however unintended that was. It keeps with the somber tone of the issues the book addresses, but It doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking. I was glad that Branza and Urdda were able to get a good ending, though.

I was also made uncomfortable by the controversial “rape as vengeance” scene, but that seemed to be the intent. It also fits in with the tone of the book, though, and I understand why it was there.

SPOILERS END

Overall, an uncomfortable but thought-provoking book, and one I’m glad I read. show less