Deerskin

by Robin McKinley

Paperback, 1994

Series

Collection

Publication

Ace (1994), Edition: Reprint, 320 pages

Description

The only daughter of a beloved king and queen, Princess Lissar has grown up in the shadow of her parents' infinite adoration for each other-an infatuation so great that it could only be broken by the queen's unexpected passing. As Lissar reaches womanhood, it becomes clear to everyone in the kingdom that she has inherited her late mother's breathtaking beauty. But on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Lissar's exquisite looks become a curse . . . Betrayed and abused, Lissar is forced to flee her home to escape her father's madness. With her loyal dog Ash at her side, Lissar finds refuge in the mountains, where she has the chance to heal and start anew. As she unlocks a door to a world of magic, Lissar finds the key to her survival and begins an adventure beyond her wildest dreams.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member the_dragonfly
I first read this book as naive and childless twenty-something, and though I loved it, I felt many of the more crucial aspects of it were flying past me; I knew there was much meaning in the story, particularly the jaw-dropping climax, but the fuller Truth of the story eluded me then.

I recently
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re-read it as a more experienced woman, a wife, a mother, and I again felt the power of the story as interpreted by McKinley, a power lent from its roots in myth as much as from the author's command of expressive language and depth of character. It is not only a "fairy tale" re-told, but it taps into our mythic roots, and in fact much of the action that drives the story stems from the characters' deep human need for Story (with a capital "S").

But this myth within a myth is also one of the great feminist novels I have read, and the deepest story I gleaned from it in both my readings--unconsciously the first time around, and quite consciously the second--is one of self-realization and self-determination of the protagonist. She is no passive princess sleeping in a dead castle, this heroine, but a girl-to woman who learns to recognize and wield her power--to help others, and in the end, to simply know herself and reveal her true nature to others, both those who understand, and those who do not. It is an enormously empowering message.

And for those not interested in feminist literature or explorations of myth, it is also, most importantly, a well-told tale with action, danger, pain, joy, and triumph.

This is not a book for the very young or the faint-hearted, but its power transcends the fantasy genre and adds to the deeper Story that we all seek when we crack open that new novel for the first time. Definitely a book I will re-read again in the future.
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LibraryThing member tjsjohanna
I always think of this as the ultimate tale of a strong woman. There is much of tragedy in this book and the fairytale beginning quickly gives way to heart breaking terror. I've always thought it interesting that Ms. McKinley chose this topic - rape - and set it in a fantasy world and then was able
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to tell a story of healing through the magic of the setting. I liked that Ossin is pudgy (though tall) and not handsome and not at all the "ideal" fairytale hero, and yet he wins Lissar's heart when no one could. I loved the friendship and loyalty of Lissar and Ash, and the loving way that the fleethounds are described. This is a powerful book.
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LibraryThing member tiamatq
Princess Lissar is the daughter of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms. When her mother falls ill, she extracts a promise from the king that he will remarry again, but only to a woman who matches the queen in beauty. Lissar is mostly forgotten in the kingdom's mourning. However, a
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neighboring royal family sends their condolences and a puppy for Lissar. Ash, the fleethound puppy, is the only joy in Lissar's life, as she spends the next two years training her dog, learning herbalism, and avoiding her father. On her 17th birthday, when she becomes eligible to be married, Lissar's father decides that his daughter matches her mother's beauty and he will marry her. What follows is a brutal assault that leaves Lissar physically, mentally, and emotionally damaged. She flees the castle and is transformed by the moon goddess, becoming the mysterious Deerskin. As she tries to start a new life in the kingdom where Ash came from, she must grapple with her painful memories.

Deerskin is a retelling of Charles Perrault's story "Donkeyskin." I was introduced to a variation of this story through Jim Henson's The Storyteller, where it was called "Sapsorrow." This story is beautiful and heartbreaking. McKinley's language is very traditional, moving at a slow but steady pace, which builds up great amounts of tension in the first part of the book. The relationship between Ash and Lissar will appeal to any dog-person - I gave my dog a lot of squeezes while reading, though she's the farthest thing from a fleethound! I was very caught up in Lissar's transformation from forgotten princess to a strong, almost-mythical woman.

This isn't an easy read. I was drawn in by the characters and the language, and I had a pretty good-sized knot in my stomach during the first part of the book (and some of the second)! Lissar's healing process is difficult and worth reading, by those who enjoy retold fairy tales or those looking for a strong female character.
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LibraryThing member Pompeia
This book is pretty amazing. In the beginning, the tale follows the traditional storyline: the daughter of the most beautiful queen grows up to be an amazingly beautiful princess surrounded by luxury but remaining humble and sweet.

I know, it doesn't sound all that interesting. However, where
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traditional fairytales would now start offering handsome princes and elaborate difficulties standing in the way of happily ever after, McKinley moves the story to darker themes of sexual abuse and consequent survival (hope that wasn't too much of a spoiler).

I can only say that I really didn't see some of the plot twists coming - I was waiting for the typical miraculous rescue when faced with taboo-themed catastrophes, but this story turned out to be less typical.

The book is written in a fairy-tale style, but I wouldn't recommend giving this to children. But for adults, this is entrancing and refreshing.
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LibraryThing member tngolden
This was one of those books that feels like you are in a warm place being told a story by a loving storyteller. It's a lyrical tale of a princess who is horribly abused and learns to look beyond beauty and find magic in the mundane. I thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful tale and hope to read more of
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this author's work soon. She is, in the oldest and most revered sense of the word, a storyteller.
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LibraryThing member Nikkles
Deerskin is one of my favorite books very interesting and moving. Its an emotional book and for a mature audience. The characters are really engaging and the plot is involved enough to keep you thinking. It is not the average fantasy novel, quite unexpected.
LibraryThing member kearnssk
The first time I read this book, I wasn't sure I even liked it enough to finish it. It's by far the darkest of Robin McKinley's books. Now, I love it. It doesn't matter if you love dogs or horses, believe in magic or fairytale. What really matters is what happens to a young woman who has
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experienced the most devastating violation.
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LibraryThing member jshillingford
This book is almost indescribably wonderful. Based on a French fairy tale, this is the story of Lissar who is viciously raped by her father but manages to escape. With a little supernatural help, and her loyal hound, she makes her way to another kingdom where the take her in. But, her wounds may be
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too deep for even love to heal. Heartbreaking, breathtaking, impossible to put down.
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LibraryThing member thioviolight
A retelling of Donkeyskin, the novel tackles the very real issue of "unnatural love" via a fairy tale setting. McKinley's story reflects by turns reality and the fantastic, and both sit well side by side and sometimes overlap. It addresses the core of the problem without shying away from it, and
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ultimately redeems the victim. A beautifully told tale!
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LibraryThing member StefanY
I'm glad that this book was assigned to me for a class or I probably would never have picked it up from just looking at the cover. No offense to the artist, but there is something about the cover of this novel that I just do not like.

That being said, I really enjoyed Deerskin. Loosely based on an
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old fairytale (Donkeyskin a French tale put in writing by Charles Perrault in the 1600's), Deerskin is the story of a princess (and her dog) who escapes horrors that happen to her in her home and takes on the life of a commoner.

The novel contains a very fairytale-type feel through much of it but with a grit and edge that make it much less light and fanciful. There is quite a bit of magic involved in the story, but not so much as to make it a Sword and Sorcery style of tale. McKinley brings events of the story to life with a harsh and brutal edge when necessary while also showing a softer touch when needed to make the reader truly care for the characters.

I thought that this was a good read and I would recommend it to others.
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LibraryThing member Crowyhead
A powerful, dreamlike (and often nightmarish) retelling of Charles Parrault's "Donkeyskin." This is an amazing novel, but I would caution that it is geared toward older teens and adults, and isn't really appropriate for quite so young an audience as much of her work.
LibraryThing member aprildt
Loosely based on Donkeyskin, a fairy tale, this is the story of a princess who is abandoned and betrayed. Her only loyal friend is her hound, Ash. It is Ash who saves the princess's life and her sanity. The princess escapes the brutality and horror of her past by journeying to a far-off country,
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and she becomes somewhat of a legend in her own time: the Moonwoman. I could not put this down. I loved the healing and hope and the not-too-contrived happy ending. I have also read Beauty and Spindle's End, both by this author, and enjoyed them just as much.
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LibraryThing member twilightlost
I first read this book as a teenager and loved it then - rereading it as an adult has not taken any of the magic away. I do not know the fairytale that Robin McKinley uses as her base for this story but I prefer it so; it meant I had no preconceptions when coming to it for the first time. This book
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always catches me up in it's weaving and I cannot put it down until the satisfying, and tear-jerking, ending.
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LibraryThing member SunnySD
Princess Lissar loses her beloved mother at an early age, and from that point on is mainly ignored by her father who grieves deeply, along with his kingdom, for the loss of his wife. When Lissar begins to grow into her mother's great beauty, however, the King's eye falls upon her with less than a
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healthy interest. When he marries her, and then rapes her, Lissar escapes accompanied only by her faithful hound.

I wasn't that keen on this book the first time I read it, but hung onto it because I like McKinley's works. When I read it the second time it made more sense, and by the time I re-read it the third or fourth time, I liked it. It's still not my favorite of her books, but it continues to have a place on my shelves.
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LibraryThing member elleceetee
This book has been warming my shelf for quite some time. Robin McKinley has long been one of my favorite fantasy writers and her book The Hero and the Crown is one of the dog-eared paperbacks that I still pick up to read from time to time when I feel like trodding familiar ground and getting lost
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in a story that I know well.

Deerskin is set in the same world as The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, though at a totally different time. It tells the story of Lissla Lissar (I think perhaps I selected this book because the main character's name is close to my own), the daughter of the most beautiful King and Queen in all of the land. As a child, she is ignored by her parents, but after her mother dies, her father looks at her with a different eye. Following a rather violent scene, Lissar runs away from home with her dog, Ash. Due the traumatic events with her father, Lissar forgets who she is and takes the name "Deerskin" as her own. She is touched by magic, and given time to heal her wounds.

Much of the rest of the book follows an extremely predictable, though enjoyable, path. I thought that the book started a bit slowly - I found myself getting bored with the long backstory on the King and Queen and impatient for the actual story to really start. But once the ball got rolling, I found myself more and more immersed in the story. This isn't a book that I would read again and again, but I feel like it was worth my time. It entertained me.
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LibraryThing member DeputyHeadmistress
I picked Deerskin up at a thrift shop because I'd loved Spindle's End and thoroughly enjoyed McKinley's retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and because I thought she'd written the other retelling of Sleeping Beauty I love, but it turns out that was Enchantment by Mormon author Orson Scott Card
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instead.
Spindle's End remains my favorite, and a sparkling good collection of prose it is.

Deerskin was different- more adult, more painful, and centered around incest, theme I never choose to read about in fiction or nonfiction. There was a lot I liked about Deerskin, but there was also a good deal I didn't care for altogether and I don't think I could recommend it to anybody, but neither can I forget it. McKinley's writing does keep you turning the pages, although this book reminded me more of an Andre Norton than her own previous work. But since I've only read Spindle and Beauty maybe I am judging her by the best of her work and this is actually more typical.

Some of the plot elements were tiresome, trite, and threadbare- The Moon Woman just wasn't believable, even when I tried my hardest to suspend my disbelief and I'm usually quite a capable disbelief suspender.

But other elements were all too believable for comfort. The reaction of her main character to the horrifying trauma she endures, the affect it has on her memory, her self-protective flinching from examining that memory is exquisitely and agonizingly well written and it read true and universal, and by universal I mean personal. I recognized it and found it familiar and true. So true that it was very painful to read, but it may have been therapeutic pain.

The horrifying trauma she endures is, as I said, a theme I never choose to read about, and I felt betrayed by the blurb on the back cover. It said something about how the main character's resemblance to her beautiful dead mother made her father want to kill her, and so she had to flee for her life. She had to flee because her father wished to make her his Queen and he raped her, so the rest of that blurb was a lie and she didn't flee soon enough.

Ordinarily I would have put the book down when I realized that the blurb was a lie and just what sort of lie it was, but by the time I realized she was not going to flee in time, I was already gasping in pain and tears alongside the main character- and I dealt with my pain over different circumstances by following along as she was dealing with her own. Her way and mine were very different when examined externally, yet perhaps more similar than it seems from within.

Hers was largely one foot in front of another, one step at a time on a physical journey taking her as far from her home as possible, and physically fighting for her survival in hand to hand combat with beasts, starvation, and blizzards, all the while steadily and resolutely looking the other way from what hurt too much to be faced.

I had to finish the book in a single sitting not only because that's the way I am at any time, but also because I needed to see her successfully gather the shattered pieces of herself together and make herself as whole as she could be again.

McKinley's books are fantasy, but they are also heartbreakingly real and true to life. Happily, the life to which they are true is one with redemption and the ability to overcome.
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LibraryThing member Imshi
This one was difficult for me to read (and definitely not for children!) I didn't really like it very much. I guess I just didn't see the point in the story, and I didn't like it enough to bother with rereading it, looking for a meaning. I love Robin McKinley's writing, but this book is definitely
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my least favorite.
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LibraryThing member lmteske
An example of an old time fairy tale, before Disney started sweetening them up. Very gruesome, but so worth it.
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
I had heard about Deerskin, of course, all the reasons not to read it or to be careful reading it. I finally got around to reading it for myself - and wow. Yes, there's a rape in it - a real rape, with all the pain - physical and mental - and terror and horror accompanying it (though Lissar gets
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some help in dealing with the physical damage, at least). But aside from that - no, not aside from it. Through that, because of that, there is a magnificent story here. Robin's usual - a romance, but one made of two equal partners; a woman who goes beyond the roles expected of her and builds herself a life and a person that truly fits her, and then finds a man who can appreciate that. No rescued princesses here (well, Camilla, I suppose. But Lissar did the rescuing, there). And the tight bond with Ash, and the only-less-tight bond with the puppies, and real friends made even while Deerskin was still hiding from herself...I repeat, wow. And now I need to read some more Robin - she's addictive. I'll be reading this one again, though not soon.
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LibraryThing member crystalcarroll
It’s horrifying, the breaking of the most basic of all human taboos. A story full of moon blood dreams and isolated cabins in the snow. Winters that last five years and moon maidens fleeing what they would not know.

This a McKinley story that I don’t often revisit. It’s too uncomfortable.

And
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yet, I love the non-linear flow of the story. The inevitable and great tide that is the ultimate conclusion to the story.

It’s less of a novel and more of a poem in prose.

Thus, I suppose it’s inevitable that I like it.
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LibraryThing member thelorelei
"Deerskin" is above all a meditation on the strength of the human psyche. McKinley has said that she wanted to explore the common fairy tale plot device wherein a young girl is saved from a "fate worse than death," as is the original Charles Perrault heroine on whom "Deerskin" is based. But, what
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if she isn't saved from that fate? Is "fate" really what this is? Is she lost forever? Is her worth somehow less than the girl who is magically whisked away from the act of violence? In McKinley's version, Lissar is "whisked" only after the fact, and on her own two feet (sometimes aided by the four feet of her loyal dog, Ash, who is possibly one of the best dogs in all of fiction.) This book is heart-breaking and heart-repairing. The characterization of Lissar is complete and the reader is carried into the depths of her pain and also her rejuvenation. "Deerskin" moved me deeply and continues to do so every time I re-read it.
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LibraryThing member KatPruce
I cannot rave enough about the wonderful author Robin McKinley! Her fairy tales always feature very strong female protagonists, well-drawn characters and imaginative stories. For fairy tale-lovers of all ages I wholeheartedly recommend The Hero and the Crown (about the fiery-haired dragon-slayer
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Aerin) and The Blue Sword (about a woman named Harry who found her purpose as a warrior against evil) - they were some of my most favorite books growing up!

Now, as for Deerskin, it is most definitely an adult novel as it deals with a very disturbing subject. This book is loosely based on the little-known Charles Perrault fairy tale called "Donkeyskin."

There was some serious Oedipal shiz going on in this book...whoa! A story that includes rape and incest is...uh, difficult reading to say the least. However, the latter two-thirds of the novel focused on transformation, hope, love and a bit of magic. In a way, this book is an ode to the power of a relationship between a woman and her dog...how they give each other strength to persevere (awww).

While I did like the story, I enjoyed my childhood favorites much more than Deerskin. It's not actually due to the disturbing nature of the story (which I thought might be the case) but more due to Lissar's interludes in the cabin which dragged a bit for me. Also, it was pretty obvious where - or should I say, to whom - Lissar's journey would take her (although there were plenty of surprises along the way). Yet overall, I thought this was a good book. One of my favorite things about this novel is that the characters seem less idealized and more realistic. While romanticized characters can make for a more entertaining read, realistic characters (especially placed in a fairy tale) make for a far more interesting one!
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LibraryThing member silentq
Not sure why I was in the mood for this very dark fairy tale adaptation (Donkeyskin is the original, often told in a bowlderdised fashion, aka without the incest), but I raced through it in two days. The language is beautiful though the events are horrific. Lissar is the only daughter of a
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glittering king and queen. The queen is the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms and her father did an impossible task to win her. But then the queen fades and dies and the king goes mad at the loss. He fixates on his daughter, who has grown to look like her mother, and announced that he's going to marry her. Lissar is almost killed, the only reason she struggles to live is that her dog, Ash, survived the attack. They flee, leaving behind the horror, the castle, the city, the kingdom, trying to survive, to heal from their injuries, to build a new life somehow. There's a bit of magic, a lot of mental darkness, and a litter of puppies to save. The light and dark intertwine, like the Moonwoman that people mistaker Lissar for. The tale takes place in the far future of Damar, when dragons are only pony sized nuisances, and there are some slight echoes of Aerin in Lissar.
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LibraryThing member sdtaylor555
Difficult to read(involves rape), but a very good story none-the less.
LibraryThing member Kivrin22
I don't think I got it. I received an advanced copy from my work, which is the only reason I read it. And that took me 3 years to do. I was pretty bored with the entire story. I loved [book: The Hero & the Crown], but I am not a fan of surrealist fiction. I love a good fairy tale, but this one
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didn't cut it.
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Awards

Mythopoeic Awards (Finalist — Adult Literature — 1994)
Otherwise Award (Long list — 1994)
Best Fiction for Young Adults (Selection — 1994)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1993

Physical description

320 p.; 4.17 inches

ISBN

044100069X / 9780441000692

Other editions

Rating

½ (838 ratings; 4)

Library's rating

Pages

320
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