Rating: 
Summary: Haunting faerie tale with a twist
Review: I have always been a fan of stories that retell well-known faerie tales. This one, although the story isn't well-known, is bound to become one to anyone that reads this book. It is vague in parts, but all in all, if you haven't ever read any of Robin McKinley's books, this one will get you hooked!
Rating: 
Summary: A truly sad tale!
Review: I can't believe that anyone would give this book a good rating! I thought that it was horriable! I had previously read the Blue Sword and LOVED IT! I was not expecting this kind of twisted tale from the author who had just given me the world of Damar! This story is of a poor young girl that is mostly ignored by her parents until her mother dies and leaves a legeacy that no other woman to compare to. Her father is so vain that the next woman he gets married to has to be a beautful as his first wife....and who could be that more then his daughter! What a sick thought! When he sense her defience he breaks down her door in the middle of the night and beats and rapes her! I don't know about you but this is not my idea of a compelling story! The daughter then flees in the middle of the night with her dog....and winds up in a hut crazed from her assult for a about a good six month....at which time she bares a stillborn child...a little gift from daddy....and then a wonderful goddess, who didn't save her from a fate worse then death, shows up and takes away her memory. At which time the story takes another strange path to some other kindom where she is mistaken for a spirit, meets a pudgy dog loving prince and falls not quite in love! Is this supposed to be a romance? If I hadn't already read and loved the Blue Sword I would never read any of her work again! I know you can do better Robin! Please go back to the drawing board on this one!
Rating: 
Summary: A compelling story that never tires
Review: I found this book to be moving and engaging on many levels. The conflicts that Lissla faces help develop her character throughout the book. Beaten and raped nearly to death by the king, she flees to the mountains to be healed. As she is purified she is turned into deerskin. She becomes a being that can deal with the trama that she has endured to become a loving human being. I have read and reread this book, and I can honestly say that the story never gets old. While this book is not for every reader, it is a successful departure from Robin McKinleys children's books.
Rating:
Summary: A shattered faerie tale. Recommended for that reason.
Review: If you want a pretty fairie tale with nothing dark in it, don't read DEERSKIN. However, I would recommend DEERSKIN precisely because it tries to be something more and tackles the sensitive issue of incest and rape. It clearly demonstrates that despite faerie tale surfaces that things can be terribly and horribly wrong and that the things that are amiss might never be noticed because everyone sees what they want to see rather than delving behind and beyond what seems the image of perfection. In some ways, this is an important book for young girls to read because it shows that the faerie tale is not the end all and be all of the story and that heroines can be hurt and survive and heal. I suppose that it is because I read DEERSKIN without any foreknowledge of what it was about and that I expected to read something along the lines of THE BLUE SWORD or THE HERO AND THE CROWN that I was so affected by DEERSKIN, but it is well worth reading and McKinley's pretty prose helps take the reader along the same journey as Lissar, the heroine of the novel. However, the criticisms that other reviewers have noted do hold true. The novel is superficial and fails to explore the issues raised in the novel with sufficient emotional depth to truly make Lissar a three-dimensional woman. On the other hand, I was caught up in Lissar's struggle and truly felt for her when she confronts her rapist and reveals her story to the kingdom. Another problem with the book is that there are several large parts of the novel that are contrived. For example, I particularly felt that too large a portion of the novel was given over to Lissar and Ossin's mutual affection for dogs and wasn't entirely convinced that Ossin really loved Lissar or was the right person for her except that he's the only eligible prince for Lissar presented in the novel. The contrast between the storybook romance depicted in the first part of the novel and that of the latter half of the novel may be deliberate but comes off as incongruous more than anything else; and the first half of the novel is wonderful at revealing the flaws behind the fairie tale romance in the first half of the novel without dispelling the brilliance of its image. In fact, the latter half of the novel just doesn't seem as well executed or thought out as the first half. Another criticism that was mentioned was that Lissar is a bit too reactive and passive throughout the novel. However, as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that no one can save Lissar from her ordeals except for herself and that a storybook ending is not guaranteed for her - she will have to make that happen for herself on the basis of her own strength. The novel is full of symbols and isn't geared for realism in the first place. The book isn't meant to be a realistic depiction of Lissar's struggle - if it is, it fails. However, DEERSKIN depicts Lissar's symbolic journey towards healing (albeit aided by the magic of the Moonwoman), and it is in this that McKinley raises DEERSKIN from a flat faerie tale populated with princes and princesses to that of a survivor and heroine.
Rating: 
Summary: My favorite book
Review: I never though that I would be able to say I had one favorite book of McKinley. The fary tale it is based on is one of the lesser known ones, and has been one of my favorites since I was a child because of the strength of the female character. After reading Deerskin it hard for me to not see this retelling as the perfect expansion of the origional Perault tale. Now unlike other McKinley books, this will be oncomfortable for some readers, because of the horrible thigs the main character goes through. This has some of the darkest passasges in any book McKinley has written. How the heroine rises above what her father does to her is wonderful for children. How better to show that rape and incest happen, and are NOT the fault of the victim. How better to inspire empathy than to show what the heroine goes through in the aftermath as she heals and comes to term with what happened? The heroine's pain and recovery as she triumphs over the cruel things that happen in her life make the book.
Rating:
Summary: i hated this book!
Review: i cant beleave this person wrote beauty! i love that book as much as i hate this one! i read fantasy books to find things that are extraordinarily beautiful and untroubled by the evil things we find in every day life. i don't think this book fits that category.
Rating:
Summary: a GOOD book
Review: i would deffinitly have to say this is one of my faveorite books, it has romance, adventure, and much more!
Rating: 
Summary: McKinley's Only Bad Book
Review: Deerskin is worth two stars only because of the powerful imagery so typical of McKinley's writing. But the plot and characterization are a mess. Characters behave in inexplicable ways only to serve the plot outline imposed by a dark fairy tale that never made much sense - a beginner's mistake that Mckinley has never made, before or since. In trying to paper over these arbitary gaps in character motivation, McKinley veers from her usual writing to the trite and hackneyed and back with peculiar abruptness. McKinley's success in retelling old stories like Robinhood and Beauty & the Beast has been precisely in her ability to create believable characters who acted in purposeful, reasonably self-consistent ways, no matter how fantastic the setting might be. But she doesn't even seem to try to make the characters self-consistent in Deerskin. I've never given a McKinley book less than 4 stars, but Deerskin is a bad book in spite of the occasional patches of brilliance. Furthermore, it is well-geared to have a strong impact on morbidly emotional young minds. Be sure you read it before passing it along to a young friend or relative.
Rating:
Summary: Boring, modern psychobabble
Review: For a so-called fantasy setting there sure was a lot of modern day psychobabble. Superficial and tedious writing, and contrived turns of plot (oh, amnesia as well as a miscarriage!). This book isn't entertaining and it's a poor account of recovery from rape.
Rating:
Summary: it's a wonderful story
Review: about how a young girl, tramatized by a ... violent rape learns to love again. What more can you say? Truely the rape scene in the begining is not so tough, nor, i think, something to be so fixated on. I actually think that the last few pages of the book were worth more to the story than any of the other parts put togeather. As a whole, this book, while yes, being a bit dark, is a great story, one with depth and feeling. I highly reccomend this book to any McKinley fan who is looking for something a little more adult.
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