Tender Morsels
by Margo Lanagan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Margo LanaganEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-14
ISBN: 0375848118
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Book Reviews of Tender Morsels
Book Review: "born to make a real life, however it cracks your heart"
Summary: 5 Stars
Margo Lanagan's retelling of the fairy tale, Snow White, Rose Red is a novel that succeeds in the way that the most compelling of fairy tale retellings or fantasy novels do: through using the fantastic/magickal elements to tell a story that feels more real and believable then if the reader imagines the story without these elements.
Tender Morsels explores aspects of experience many people dont like to look at closely(brutal violence against girls/women in many forms), telling not only the truths of these experiences but the truth of how deeply these violations scar the women, unspooling the layers of effects on their lives.
Tender Morsels is compelling and original partly because the emotional tone conveys a depth of honesty, compassion, and warmth that is very rare. The language is original and poetic and a pleasure to read.
Lanagan's central character, Liga, is so wounded by rape and abuse, that her desire for safety above all else and at the cost of every adventure, new experience, and even reality is a character not often seen in literature with this kind of sensitivity and understanding; and this makes her journey more touching.
Lanagan explores some dark topics, but she does so in a way that does not dwell on the specific details, and instead focuses on the emotional significance of these traumatic events. The words that designate these dark topics conjure a graphic nature that do not convey the spirit of this book, and are to my mind, misleading when listed. Tender Morsels is an emotional journey, and like many original versions of fairy tales, the characters spend some time dwelling in the dark woods on their way to transformation and growth.
Tender Morsels questions something very significant fundamental and relevant: how can we find a way to live in a world and among people when such dark devastating brutality is a part of it. This book is not about smothering us in darkness, but helping the characters and us to find a way to allow and accept the truth of a world in which the light and the dark to co-exist, so that the darkness does not consume them/us, and they/we do not either live in the false artificial light of denial.
She questions what is safety? and at what cost? and how do we view those women who have suffered so that they fear everyone and everything and what place do they have in society? What is our responsibility to them? How we avoid them and deny them, some of us preferring they remain in their hidden places, others kindly drawing them into life.
She poses complicated moral questions with emotional intensity and insight, and doesnt take the simple easy answers, or pretend that the answers are the same for all of us.
She presents us with characters that have different experiences needs and desires, and does not tell us that one way is the right way. Her characters are imperfect, flawed and lovable. The shifting points of view are interesting and believable.
She shows us how our view of the world can completely change when the information and experience we have of it changes.
Tender Morsels explores denial and how it holds us captive as it seems to rescue us; what it is to be saved, what can be salvaged after devastating loss, what is the essential to the human heart, what it is to live, to love, to be human, to be wounded, to survive, what we loss, what we can gain back, what we hope for, the strange power of dreams and what we dream of, how our dreams keep us alive, transform us, and can even keep us tucked too tight and bound as a pupa in cocoon.
The Snow White, Rose Red fairy tale is incorporated into Lanagan's own narrative so seamlessly and truthfully, that it feels more like the fairy tale was distilled as the essence of Tender Morsels then the book inspired by the tale.
Tender Morsels touched me more deeply then anything I have read in a very long time. and it stays with me.
Summary of 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?Fantasy Books
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