From the Bookshelf of What's the Name of That Book???…

Tender Morsels

Margo Lanagan

Why we're reading this: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com …more
[close] https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

No group discussions for this book yet.

What Members Thought

Mar 25, 2011 karen rated it liked it

Shelves: icky-sex, why-yes-i-ya

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 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.

come to my blog! ...more

145 likes · Like · see review

Oct 10, 2010 Laura rated it liked it

Shelves: old-reads, mt-bookpile-pre-2010

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was definitely one confusing book - at times I was unsure who was narrating, which Bear was which, and whether we were in Liga's world or in the real world. I'm also unsure if this was based on a story I should have known, since it was part of a "updated fairy tales" list.

Liga's very difficult life was dealt with relatively sensitively: the incest, abortions and gang rape are not graphically depicted but it's clear what's going on. Her "heaven" appeared, at first, to be almost a dream but i ...more

Like · see review

Dec 30, 2010 Michelle rated it really liked it

Shelves: feminism, fantasy, best_covers, book_club, award_winner, fairy-tales

in a small village long ago or far away, Liga's mother has died, and her father demands she take her mother's place. the situation is phrased about as gently as that - this is not an explicit or graphic sort of tale - but the enormous monstrosity of this girl's life is gradually made crystal clear. through a little twist of magic, she finds herself in her own perfect heaven, free to raise her children in perfect calm, away from the struggles and pain of the real world. but calm doesn't temper a ...more

Like · see review

Sep 22, 2008 Tanya rated it liked it

This book broke my heart, a bit. It is not always filled with happy miracles or easy choices. It's entirely a story of hard decisions; of denial and fear; of someone so shattered and so helpless that she is forced to withdraw from the world and try and find an escape in a happy world of her own imagining, an idyllic place stripped away of all things bad. Except, that doesn't work out as well as she would have liked (I won't spoil it, don't worry). In the end, there are no weepy happy song and da ...more

Like · see review

Oct 19, 2008 kvon rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Like · see review

Mar 21, 2012 Misha rated it liked it

Shelves: multiple-perspectives, doorway-prose, doorway-place, coming_of_age, dark, dubcon, read-2012

I liked some elements of this and the writing is really phenomenally good. But the book focuses overmuch on dark sexuality, rape and male domination. This is marketed as a teen novel but would appeal to more adult fantasy readers than teens and is quite mature for the average teen market. It's chock full of allusions and symbolism that even went over my head. If you like reading dark, twisted fairytales, then it'll be your thing. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Oct 18, 2015 Emma rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I thought I could do this one but it turns out I can't. I can only read so much of a book with a sick feeling in my chest before I decide to give up. I also found the beginning dense to the point of being impenetrable. I can see why others have loved it but it's just really not my bag. I'm unsure now about continuing with her other books. I don't really read to feel this uneasy. ...more

Like · see review

Apr 29, 2011 Sharon marked it as did-not-finish

When I ran out of time on the library book, I realized I didn't need to finish it. There's some really brutal violence against a young girl at the beginning of the book; the misery is kind of relentless. This is something I was expecting, so it didn't bother me, but I know that the point where I stopped reading (something like 50 or 60 pages in) was still really the exposition of the story. Liga's world is unfolding, and while the writing is lovely, I wasn't compelled to see what the rest of the ...more

Like · see review

Jan 12, 2009 Lara rated it liked it

Shelves: reinventions-reimaginings, 2009, printz-award

While muddy in the middle and overly long, this is a daringly grizzly expansion on "Snow White & Rose Red" that would have made the Brothers Grimm proud. ...more

Like · see review