I read Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels a couple of months ago but can't really stop thinking about.
I picked it up in a shop because of the pretty cover (isn't it pretty?)
I almost put it down again because I didn't like the blurb:
Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. It is a gloriously told tale of journeys and transformations, penetrating the boundaries between male and female, reality and myth, conscious and unconscious, temporal and spiritual, human and beast.
Because, you know, ick. Sounds like 10,000 bad fantasy novels and hippy stuff.
I hestitated because there was a quote from Neil Gaiman saying it was the best book he's read for ages. Cool.
But then, I mean, I like him but he comes across as a terribly nice man who seems to be superenthusiastic about everyone he's ever met (the acknowledgements page of his most recent book made him sound particularly grateful to anyone who had bought him coffee).
So, on balance, I wasn't convinced I should buy it that day and I put it down.
But then I saw it in the library the following week and borrowed it without thinking.
And found I couldn't put it down. It has a fantastically imagined world where magic kind of works but it's really about women's lives and choices and adolescence and ageing and motherhood and love and and and...
It's the sort of book I wish I was in a lovely G&T drinking and chocolate quaffing book club where we could go "did you like this bit?" and "what did you think of this bit? Wasn't that clever?" rather than the snackless serious Alexander McCall Smith scoffing book club I'd join in the real world, if I was in fact a joiner.
Loved it. Gave a copy (not from the library) to my sister for Christmas and she loved it too. Hope it wins some of the prizes it's up for. Go Margo.
