The Changeling by Kate Horsley

The Changeling Reviews

• 
  Amanjot

  This was the second time reading The Changeling of Finnistuath. The first time I read it was 9 years ago when it was first published. I remembered liking it, so thought I would re-read. I suppose that a more seasoned reading palate and some years of life experience have effected my response to this book.
  
  The story starts out well enough with a very interesting scenario, and set in a great time period. Sadly, I became less enchanted by the book this second time around. The narrative is very involved, it felt like it took forever to read. There are long passages that follow the thoughts and actions of several side characters, a midwife, lord's son etc. This was somewhat interesting, but seemed overdone and tiresome after a bit.
  
  SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
  
  The worst part for me was as the story is nearing the end. Whereas time is rather crawling for the characters throughout the body of the book, towards the end years leap ahead in a few pages. Suddenly Grey is older, her son ages to sexual maturity and is quickly killed...
  
  I don't know, I just felt like this "older" personification of Grey didn't fit with the character I had been reading about through the majority of the book. Then the passages of her lengthy mourning and nomadic lifestyle vaguely described, I felt like the book kept going on and on when it could have ended chapters earlier with more satisfaction.
  
  This may be interesting for a one time read, but definitely not a keeper for me.
• 
  Jaclyn Goss

  Not to be confused with the novel connected to angelina jolies newest movie. The changling follows a girl who is brought up as a boy. Fearing loosing her child to the anger of her husband, she raises her daughter as a boy, fooling both child and father, by convincing them both she has very deformed genitals. Through shame the girl grows up the pride of her father, and the secret of her mother, only to be pushed finally in the direction of the church. Unfortunatly nature has it's own way of revealing her "flaws," while she is in seminary to become a holy man. Story takes place during the black plague era, and thus gives you a historical reference to the disease, time period and seminary life, in the dark era.
• 
  Richelle

  Wow, this book shows how messed up life was during "The Dark Ages." Grey is born a girl, but raised as a boy so her father will not kill her. He already has enough daughters to feed. She never doubts she is a boy until puberty, when she begins to think the changes in her body are a curse brought on by disobeying the priest to whom she is a servant "boy." The corruption of the church and that part of her life where she wanted to become a monk was confusing and that part of the story I did not like. Overall, I liked about 2/3 of the book, so I can't say I didn't like it, but I can't say I'd recommend it.
• 
  Deidre

  Gender bending, good story. They kind where you underline passages because they are so well written.
• 
  Meghan

  Ehh... this novel was kind of a struggle to motivate myself to get through. It was a rollercoaster between being very engrossed for several chapters, then losing interest. The story itself, Grey’s adventures from child through young adult and older, is very intriguing. Grey’s journey is what kept me going. The parts of the novel that I would have to push myself through were the lengthy existential internal religious debates of a few characters. It does fit in with the time period where religion was a HUGE factor in people’s lives. So! I see where it has its place in the novel.. but personally, religion is not my cup of tea and it interrupted the flow of the novel at times.
• 
  Olivia Netzley

  I was intrigued by the premise, but honestly I couldn't get past the sexual scenes between Grey and the visiting priest. Grey is probably 12 or 13 at that point in the book, and reading shit like "a moan dribbled past his lips" and how he begged an adult to have sex with him was.....how to put this....fucking nasty regardless of the historical context. Stopped reading immediately. I didn't care about any of the characters even that far into the book, so it wasn't like I was missing out on anything.
• 
  Katie S

  Eh, I wasn't too fond of this book. I got about 1/3 of the way through and finally gave myself permission to stop reading it. It moves very slow in story line and character development. I also didn't find myself drawn to the main character as much as I feel I should have been.
• 
  Marko Jevtić

  I like the "Wuthering Heights" + "The Thorn Birds" atmosphere and tribulations presented in the book. To be honest, not the best reading from the stylistic point of view, but it was something I was willing to endure for the sake of the story.
  
  Not everyone's cup of tea, though.
• 
  Mark

  Good!
• 
  NormaCenva

  Unusual story but still enjoyable.
• 
  Sheila

  I wasnt sure if I would like this book at first. In the beginning, Grey is a boy. As a boy, he was protected from the world in ways that a girl would not have been. However, Grey turns out to be a girl and realizes the ways of the world are unjust for many, not just girls. This book takes you through Grey's life from boy, to woman, to a woman with a boy. When she finally identifies herself as a mother, she finds a contentment that she has been unable to obtain most of her life. When she is no longer a mother, not only does her heart break but the reader's heart breaks with the truth of the unfairness of the world in which we still live; a world in where a mother's grief exceeds all others.
• 
  Alanna Rusnak

  If you want a book to tear you wide open, this is certainly the one to do it. Horsley uses language that paints a vivid, dark, gorgeously hurtful picture of life in the fourteenth century. The character of Grey is one that will linger with me - her strength through unimaginable circumstance...it was just breathtaking.
  
  This book did not make me feel good. It did not affirm a belief in the general goodness of humanity. There was little hope, redemption, or graces but there was a strength - the strength of one woman - that inspired me in ways I don't even know how to articulate.
  
  This is an important book. It's about identity and perseverance. And, if nothing else, it bathes simple, ugly things, in a language that takes it from ordinary to extraordinary.
• 
  Sara-Anne

  While I liked the concept and the plot of this novel, I think it would have greatly benefited by having the narrative be more closely tied with the protagonist. Grey, the protagonist, is such an interesting character, first being raised to believe she was a boy, then finding forbidden love, eventually becoming mother, wife, and warrior. I would have loved to have been more inside Grey's (what must have been) tumultuous mind. However, Horsley tends to write very distantly from her characters and you get the sense that you are observing the story from a great distance without ever really knowing the characters.
• 
  Bonnie

  Another good Horsley book that submerged me into a different and unique sense of time, place, and self, which is what I want from a book. The only reason I'm giving this 4 and not 5 stars (though I'd probably give it 4.5 if I could instead) is that sometimes the writing feels a bit self conscious and contrived (as with other books of hers I've read). Mostly it's an immersive read, but every now and then I felt jolted out of the narrative when the writing seemed over done. Otherwise a unique story about identity, gender, and coming of age.
• 
  Monica

  Fabulous book about 1400 Century Ireland where a peasant girl is raised as a boy, and who, until adolescence, never doubts herself to be a male. The book follows this unique individual through her childhood as a boy; through her adolescents as... confused; through her young adult life as a young maiden being abused in the church; through her adult life as a mother; and finally as an elder who can take the lessons learned throughout all aspects of her life.
• 
  Saurora Mirkin

  just adding it now because there is a movie coming out of the same name, but not based on this book. I really liked this book, though it was not what I'd consider a "serious" piece of literature. It skirts around interesting dilemmas relating to gender, power and history, all within a story set sometime in an imagined, more tribal past, so it has that historical fiction feel without the ties to actual history. An entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking read.
• 
  Amy

  While I've loved all of Kate Horsley's other books and had counted her as a favorite author, this one was not impressive. The writing was fine, but I didn't care at all for the subject matter of a boy who doesn't know she's a girl being whored out to sexually promiscuous and sexually violent monks. Yuck. I might not read another Horsely after this one.
• 
  Kira

  So far it seems really good. I got through 43 pages during my lunch half hour, and that was with distractions. I'm looking forward to sitting down and immersing myself completely. :)
  
  Ok.. I loved the book... until the last 20 pages. Then. It changed. It went Awry. In the worst possible way. I may have to write myself a new ending.
• 
  Jerri

  This was a very thought-provoking read, that much is for sure. I won't go into the whole summary which you can read at the top, but I will say this: I am very disturbed by just how harsh life was for my ancestors. The Changeling brings to life the misery and suffering of daily life in Ireland set amongst the 1400's.
  
  
• 
  Esme

  This is a book that starts strong and then becomes a morass of symbolism, navel gazing, and jump cuts in plot and character developments. Time is spottily devoted to developing different aspects of the plot and the resulting narrative has the audience grasping at straws trying to decipher what is important an what should be tossed aside as tonal dreck.
• 
  Meredith Armstrong

  Just as luscious in prose as "
  Confessions of a Pagan Nun." I was a little disappointed in the last section of the book. It felt a bit rushed. Otherwise, I loved it.