Reviewed by LadyJay for TeensReadToo.com

Liga has been mistreated all of her life. Her father is a monster; preying upon her at night in the midst of his drunken stupors. Liga's mother is dead, and cannot protect her daughter from the wickedness in the world.

Because of this, Liga is made a mother too early. In an act of desperation, Liga decides to kill her first child, believing that she will be better off in another place. A magic "moon-babby" takes pity on Liga and offers her an alternate universe to raise her daughters.

For many years, Urdda, Branza, and Liga are safe; no one can do them harm. Eventually, the boundaries of their world are infiltrated, and the three women must leave their paradise. Their new task; to survive in a world full of both cruelty and kindness, something that Liga thought she would never have to face again.

The basis for TENDER MORSELS is the story of Snow White and Rose Red. Two sisters must battle a dwarf and rescue a man from a witch's curse. Lanagan has included these pivotal plot details while still making the story her own.

There are many interesting twists that Lanagan has included in the novel. Her use of vocabulary and language is also very unique. The story may appear daunting to readers at first, but those who give it a chance will be greatly rewarded.

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I read this because Neil Gaiman recommended it, plus I've always been interested in the story of Snow White and Rose Red. This story is a very interesting view on womanhood and the roles women play in life.

Liga, the perfect Mother figure, creates a perfect world for herself and her daughters. White is the sweet, demure one, and Red is the wild inquisitive one. There is both the perfect mother represented as well as the scholarly woman and the ancient witch woman.

However, the over arching moral seems to say that nothing perfect can last, and despite a mother's best efforts, nothing she tries to do is right for her daughter's growing up. And she'll never find completion.

While everyone's stories are interesting and wind together in creative ways, I was overall unsatisfied with how the story ends. Liga, the character we start with, has an abrupt and unsatisfying ending. And many of the characters, even her daughters, seem to be secondary to her story.

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Terrifying and amazing. Published as adult fiction in the author's home country, as young adult fiction in mine, and having fair warning about the story's graphic scenes I tried to keep my expectations pretty broad. Drawn from "The Ungrateful Dwarf" (the source material for the Grimm Brother's fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red"), Lanagan explores pain and beauty, the misuse of magic, and living in a man's, man's world.

There were some places where I felt it dragged and I just wanted to hurry and get back to the characters that I liked better. Even still, the unique language and lyrical prose kept me enthralled, and I understood why those scenes were there overall.

Not an easy read, but an extremely worthwhile one. Before I was finished with it, I ordered a copy of the audiobook because I plan on spending time with this gem again.

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I found this book because it was the same author of The Brides of Rollrock Island and I enjoyed that tale so I thought I'd try this one.

I'll admit - it took me a bit to finish this book. I didn't devour it as quickly as I have others. I read The Dragon and the George before this book and was finished in 3 days. This book took me two weeks. I found it hard to stay involved, and sometimes found myself confused as to what was going on. I stopped picking up the book before I went to bed and just went to bed, briefly wondering what was going to happen next. As I passed the midway point and entered the home stretch, it 'clicked' and I started to get the idea about the heaven and the real world. I don't know where I missed it in the first part of the book or where the disconnect was - but what's done is done.

Overall, I enjoyed my time in the world of bears who arent bears and gold that only is gold when taken from heaven and rude wee little men. Now that it's done, I can move on to other stories I have waiting for me.

I will say that even though I wasn't enthralled by the book - Urdda's gesture to Branza at the end for her birthday actually made me cry, and I don't know why because up until then I wasn't feeling close to the three women and the bears at all. I was actually upset for Liga too.

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I was really excited to read this book because I love fairy tale retellings. This is a fairy tale retelling of Snow White and Rose Red. I have heard mixed things about this novel and after reading it I can understand why. Some parts are beautifully written and some are incredibly boring.

Liga has had a horrible childhood and preteen existence. At fifteen she has a small child (who is her fathers) and is pregnant with another (from rape by town boys) when a magical being grants her life in her personal heaven. In this peaceful place, that is Ligas ideal world, she raises her two daughters Branza (Snow White) and Urdda (Rose Red). Urdda is especially eager to seek out adventure and when a very manlike bear shows up, Urdda decides there must be a way out of this world. As the two worlds start to collide things begin to unravel.

Okay lets get the controversial issues out of the way. Yes there is a lot of uncomfortable material in this book. Liga is raped by her father many, many times and abused by him after her mother dies. Her father forces abortion on her more than once. These scenes arent explicit but you know what is going on. At first Liga doesnt think much of it, just that she doesnt like what her dad does in a kind of ambiguous way, but as she grows older she realizes how wrong it was. Is it pretty and fun to read about? No. This is however written about is a tasteful way that comes off more as sad than as sensationalist. I dont think its a bad thing for young adults to read about rape and abuse, it helps them know when things are wrong and what types of situations to avoid.

Liga is then raped by a bunch of town boys one of which is colored. There has been a lot of uproar about the fact one of the rapists is colored. This confuses me because she is raped by multiple boys. Most of them are white and one is colored. She happens to get pregnant with the colored rapists child. This child ends up being Urdda who is red-skinned and wild and causes a lot of trouble. Many people see this as racist for some reason, but I think they need to consider the original fairy tale. Snow White (Branza) is always portrayed as the rule follower and is always as white as snow in hair and face. Rose Red (Urdda) is always portrayed as having some sort of red feature (hair, skin color, whatever) and is the wild rule breaker. I saw this whole issue as more of Lanagan being true to the fairy tale that she was retelling than really isolating a certain skin color of person. Also most of the rapists and evil people in this story are white...so how is that racist? Anyway, thats just my take on it.

Okay, now we have most of the controversial issues out of the way. Lets talk about the story. Liga is a victim, she was raised that way and she has trouble choosing for herself. Liga, likes having someone to tell her what to do. When bad things happen to her she deals with them and moves on, it is practical and very sad all at once. She is definitely used to no one caring if she is in pain. She tries to raise her daughters differently, but trapped in her personal Heaven there isnt a lot of conflict around to teach them how to deal with real life.

Branza and Urdda end up both being strong characters in their own ways and I enjoyed them a lot. Both of them are a bit rebellious and learn different ways of coping when they are forced to leave Heaven and make their way through the conflict that is the real world.

I liked how there was a time difference between the two worlds, this difference in time flow added a lot of interesting aspects to the story. I liked how the two worlds were tied together by certain commonalities.

The beginning of this book is beautifully written and wonderfully paced. However for me things started to fall apart in the middle of the story. We start to jump around willy nilly between different points of view. Sometimes we hear from Branza, Liga or Urdda...then we also start to hear from the Dwarf and the boys who dress up as Bears.

This is where things start getting a bit weird. The boys who dress up as Bears for Bear Day in the real world turn into real bears when they fall into Heaven. There one of the bears befriend the three women. This gets weird because Liga kind of falls in love with Bear. The women do not know these Bears are men. Then second Bear comes to Heaven and he likes to grope Branza with his bear paws and mess around with the female bears in the forest. Not only is some of this kind of odd and disturbing...it just gets plain old boring. I mean really we could have cut 200 pages out of the middle of this book and been just fine; the pacing was just completely off.

Well, I have already written a book about this book...so I am not going to say much more. Its kind of a shame the middle was so bogged down because some of this book is beautifully written and there are some really neat ideas in here.

Overall some parts were beautiful, some parts were downright weird, and some were just plain old boring. I love some of the ideas here, but the story just lags at points. This was one of those books by the time I got to the end I was just absolutely relieved to be done with it...it felt like it went on forever. I wish I could recommend this, but I just dont think it is a book most people will enjoy.

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