You know, those tangible things with the pages?

I've started another Robin McKinley novel, called Deerskin, and aside from her short story collections and one novel about dragons that I'm not real excited about, I believe it's the last of her books I haven't read yet. I put it off until almost-last because it has some disturbing thematic content (as Monica puts it, "Evil father rapists what?"), but so far it's really, really good, and it might end up being one of my favorites. We'll see, though -- I'm still on page 52, and she hasn't been attacked by her father yet.

While I'm on the topic, another McKinley book I never got around to mentioning when I read it a couple months ago is Sunshine (fabulous summary and review here), which, although I'm not into the whole vampire shtick, I really enjoyed. (This book predates the recent national obsession with vampires, and contains no sparkles.) I'd totally recommend it. She rambles a bit (which seems to be McKinley's style when she's not being careful), but she does a great job of creating a sense of place, and of creating palpable tension between Sunshine's (the main character) growing friendship with the vampire Constantine, and her intense fear and disgust. Also, Sunshine works as a baker in a coffee shop, and those descriptions me want to eat molten chocolate raspberry cinnamonny baked goodness like whoa.