Early Review - Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Short Stories
Size: 240 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0375869204
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Amazon Vine for Review
Rating: 4/5 stars


I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. Previously I had read Lanagan’s Brides of Rollrock Island and really loved it. This was a collection of short stories that I enjoyed overall. Some stories were spectacular and some were a bit hard to follow.

This is a collection of stories that span fantasy, horror, and paranormal genres. Some of the stories are really well done, a couple I had to reread to figure out exactly what was going on. In general Lanagan tends to be a bit vague in her writing, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about what really happened. This can lead to the reader having more questions than answers by the time they get to the end of a story.

This is aimed at young adults, but there is one story “Catastrophic Disruption of the Head” that was very adult. This story had a ton of violence including a rape scene and discussion of mutiple rapes on a young woman...so just be aware of that.

My favorite stories of the bunch were: The Golden Shroud (a beautiful retelling of Rapunzel with a happier ending than the traditional fairy tale0, Into the Clouds (a story about a young boy whose mother gets called to go somewhere else), Ferryman (a story about how the young Sharon got the job as Ferryman of the dead) and Eyelids of the Dawn (in which a building decides it needs a vacation).

All of the stories included are listed below along with ratings and brief descriptions. I haven’t read any of Lanagan’s other short story collections yet, so I don’t know how they compare to this one. I did enjoy The Brides of Rollrock Island a lot more than this story collection.

Overall it was a decent collection of stories. I will be checking out more of Lanagan’s short story collections. I recommend to those who love quirky and slightly ambiguous fantasy/horror stories. A lot of these stories are very creative and very different.

The Point of Roses (3/5 stars)
The first story is about a boy who can make things come true from objects. Very vague and a bit hard to follow.

The Golden Shroud (5/5 stars)
A retelling of Rapunzel with a happier ending than the traditional fairy tale

A Fine Magic (4/5 stars)
When two young girls reject the attentions of an old wizard, he gets his revenge on them.

A Honest Day’s Work (4/5 stars)
About a town where the workers harvest creatures of gelatinous goo from the ocean.

Into the Clouds on High (5/5 stars)
Story about a boy whose mother is called to the sky.

Night of the Firstlings (3/5 stars)
About a family who survives a sickness and an attack, only to be forced to journey from their home. Another story that is very vague and was a bit hard to follow.

Catastrophic Disruption of the Head (4/5 stars)
Story about a soldier who comes across an old woman with magical dogs. A bit hard to follow since it jumps around in time, also very graphic violence.

Ferryman (5/5 stars)
Story about how Sharon came to be the Ferryman. Wonderfully done and clever.

Living Curiosities (4/5 stars)
A story about people living at a circus and a suicide.

Eyelids of the Dawn (5/5 stars)
When a building gets uncomfortable it decides to take a vacation out to sea. This was a fun story that was easy to follow and very creative.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 150+ Reading Challenge
- Color Coded Reading Challenge
- Young Adult Reading Challenge

Early Review - The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Size: 320 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-0375869198
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley through NetGalley.com
Rating: 5/5 stars


I got a copy of this to review through NetGalley(dot)com. This was an absolutely wonderful book and now I want to go read everything else Margo Lanagan has written. The writing is beautiful and haunting and absolutely engrossing.

This is a series of short stories about the people who live on Rollrock Island. Misskaella is an ugly and fat girl who is treated cruelly by the people of Rollrock island. That is until the night Misskaella realizes that she can call out women from inside the seals of the island. The seal wives are beautiful beyond compare and the men of Rollrock will do anything to have a seal wife; but the seal wives are also eternally miserable as they as they are stuck in their human bodies. The men control the wives, but are in turn bespelled by the seal wives. This is the story of all of the years that Misskaella kept Rollrock island under the sad curse of the sea wives.

The prose this book is written in is absolutely stunning and the stories have a very dark and melancholy fairy tale feel to them. The descriptions are so well done that you can almost taste the sea as you read this book. The characters are amazing; they can show incredible love for each other and also be incredibly cruelty. It was interesting to have a story that explores both depths of human emotion so deeply.

Misskaella is a fascinating character. In the beginning you really hurt for her, everyone is so cruel to her even as a child. Eventually she turns into what they believe her to be an ugly, mean witch. All of the characters in the stories are fascinating in similar ways. The men of the island love their seal wives so deeply, yet these same men are so cruel in how they keep their wives from the sea.

Some of the stories explore how even when a family tries to move away from Rollrock Island, their son is still drawn into the trap of taking a seal wife and being stuck in the same pattern of life on the island that his parents were trying to avoid.

There is also wonderful symmetry to the story; the final story explores how (despite everything that has happened) once Misskaella is gone things slowly start to migrate back to normality and life goes on. Ironically it takes the children’s love to break the curse which was started with a husband’s love.

Overall a spectacular book, one of the best I have read in some time. The writing is incredibly beautiful and haunting; the story explores human nature and has a very melancholy, fairy tale type tone to it. The characters are complex and both beautiful and ugly. Highly recommended to everyone; especially those with an interest fairy tales and the selkie mythology. I want to go out right now and read everything else Lanagan has written.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 150+ Books Reading Challenge