Deer Life was ok. I think that it was hyped up because of the author but it was just an okay story for me.. forgettable

This story had incredible potential. I am partial to fairy tale inspired stories or retellings, and I absolutely loved the premise of Deer Life. I also loved the lyrical writing and the overall whimsical quality of this book. Unfortunately, I was not able to truly get into the story. I felt the characters lacked motive, and the story itself was underdeveloped. I would have liked to see this story more fleshed out and I would have liked to understand the characters more. As it if, I felt no connection to the stories or the characters. However, as I said, this book had great potential and there are certainly aspects of it that I enjoyed. The overall plot is an interesting one (witches, cursed boys, etc). I am intrigued to find out what is next in line for this author.

This was confusing and badly written. Development? None. Fleshed out characters? Nope. Well, at least it was short. This was nothing like what I had expected and I'm just really disappointed. 1.5 star - given begrudgingly.

Deryn Hedlight’s father had been killed in a terrible accident just on a year ago. Deryn and his mother have hit challenging times without his dad’s income, so he decides to take the wagon and gun, he had inherited from his dad to the woods to see if he can shoot a deer to keep them fed over the winter period. Unfortunately, he shoots Jupiter, a part wolf, part husky owned by Eleanoir, a woman of unusual beauty with a malicious heart and he meets a shocking fate; he is turned into a deer.

His mother, Maggie, searches for him, accompanied by the twins; Griff and Gruff spend their days trying to find him. On one of the days they are out searching for him, their paths cross with Claira and her father Magnus, who have a live deer on the back of their wagon. Maggie, knowing how harsh life is for all the folk living nearby, finds it somewhat strange when Claira says that she knows the deer. Maggie also has a strange sense that the deer is someone familiar to her. It is her son of course, but will she ever get him back after the terrible spell that Eleanoir has put on him for killing her dog?

This is a sweet, quick read. The author has certainly used his vivid imagination in creating a very different type of tale with spells galore.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers was given a copy of the book to review.

Really didn’t like this book. It felt like it wasn’t polished enough and I kind of expected more.

Knowing how much I enjoy Ron Sexsmith's music, I was intrigued to see he wrote a book. I expected it to be a memoir, but no, it's a fairytale for adults, or more specifically a cautionary tale, which I like. It was a short, entertaining story. Enjoy. (I read this on my phone and Kindle via a NetGalley download but I did peruse the print version once it arrived at the library because reading it digitally means missing out on the full experience of the illustrations!)

Though advertised as a children's book, I would classify this as more of a middle grade novel. There's some dark subject matter (witchcraft, murder, kidnapping) that just seems better suited to kids who are a little older. The plot of this story follows a fairly predictable line of a witch wandering the countryside, seeking revenge on people who haven't actually wronged her, which leads other people to band against her in order to break all of the spells she's cast. There are a few surprises, but for the most part it's pretty easy to figure out where the story is going at any given time. The artwork in this book only showed up every once in awhile, and wasn't particularly impressive.

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise - a quirky take on a fantasy fairy tale from Ron Sexsmith, previously better known as a singer-songwriter. Our hero is a hapless mummy's boy called Deryn, who gets caught up in a twisted tale involving an evil witch intent on being as wicked as possible, his overbearing mother, a romantically inclined local landowner and his attractive daughter, bouncers, a maid and one of them getting temporarily turned into a deer.
Sexsmith's lyrical prowess comes to fore as he weaves a rich narrative with a unique sense of language and phrasing. It is a little overdone in the characterisations, and he could certainly lose a few of the cast of what feels like hundreds, but there's plenty here to enjoy.

This is a fun fairy tale type book. A young man becomes the unexpected recipient of a spell by a wicked witch. The story is about his mother's undying love and her trials to find out what happened to him.

This book is a good read for middle school readers. There are evil, honesty, compassion, love, and purity lessons within the story. The author does a good job of writing to juvenile readers while the adult reader can also enjoy the book as an easy read.

This is an engaging fairy tale.
I suggest the illustration be developed more and also have some background on the witch's dog.

A fun read that offers up some simple pleasure. It's a self-confessed fairytale and it has a warm, nostalgic feel to it. There's a dark side to the tale as all good fairytales used to deliver, but overall it is filled with love and affection.

As I say, it is a simple pleasure, and also a fairly simple book; a brief read that isn't very taxing. But, as with many a great fairytale there are layers. Sexsmith offers some clever lines and artful use of words that enrich the whole story when you spot them, but aren't required to appreciate the story. It makes it a tale that can span ages and be enjoyed by young and old.

A fun offering in a much neglected style these days.

Excerpt from Review: "...Being new to this sort of medium, Ron Sexsmith brings a unique style to his storytelling. I believe he would have done well as a bard back in the days in which his story is set. I can imagine him traveling from town to town, creating stories accompanied by lyre music. The style in which Deer Life is written is very reminiscent of the style of the traveling bard. It is as if the narrator is telling the tale as it is taking place, never quite sure where the tale will take us until we arrive there..."

Unfortunately, I was kind of meh on this one. I love fairy tales, and I especially love re-imagined or updated fairy tales, but this one fell a little flat for me. I wasn't a huge fan of the overuse of exclamation points, and for some reason the ending rankled a bit.

Mixed metaphors, weirdly arranged sentences and slightly stilted grammar. A quote:

At this curious line of questioning, Grimsby’s smile faded to
make way for a new look of discomfort, which had spread across
his pie-shaped countenance like strawberry jam.



Ouch.

The book has a rolling stream of consciousness vibe and doesn't so much break the fourth wall as torch it to the ground, grind up the ashes and spread them to the four winds. The story is somewhat surreal and a bit dreamlike and muddled. I think this is intentional on the author's part, and although the tense shifts in mid-paragraph might be intentional, they do get a bit wearisome.

The cover is absolutely gorgeous. The interior illustrations are odd and seem unfinished. (I read an early galley proof, the illustrations may be completely different for the released version of this book).

As stated, my copy was an early galley proof, so I can imagine that it hadn't yet gone through final re-writing and editing yet. It's not terribly polished, but the story itself is interesting and very fairy-tale-esque with a wicked witch (being wicked, because she's a witch of course), villagers and evil vs. good, with a happy ending.

The bones of the story are solid and I can definitely see this being translated very successfully into a musical or graphic novel someday.

Not at all what I expected; therefore, I'm rating it low. I hate to rate two stars, but I just didn't like it. Sorry.

I wanted to like this book so very much. I really enjoy Ron Sexsmith's music and was intrigued that he had written a book. The cover is a work of art. Unfortunately that's where the good ends, and ends hard. Deer Life is billed as a fairy tale, but it was difficult to get a sense of what it wanted to be. The writing feels as if it's written for children, with a maddening overuse of exclamation points. I suppose this was an effort to show or elicit excitement, but the exclamations were used where the matching emotion didn't exist. It's one thing to overuse punctuation, but to use it nonsensically is even more irksome.

I started to think this was written for children, but the mentions of booze helped me conclude that wasn't the reason for the childish prose. There are moments of humor, but everything felt so frustratingly inconsistent they didn't save the story. Small example: After Deer 1 introduces itself to Deer 2, Deer 2 argues that names are silly. But then Deer 2 proceeds to talk about other forest denizens by the names Deer 2 has assigned to them. What the hell, then? Are names silly or necessary? This example is rather trivial, but in the grand scheme of things those examples added up. Sadly, I recommend you enjoy the cover and move on.

https://anovelhaul.wordpress.com/2017/08/13/deer-life-by-ron-sexsmith/

I'm not entirely sure what I've just read. I was drawn to this by the cover, and perhaps I should have listened to the phrase 'never judge a book by its cover' because this, in all honesty, was a bit of a mess.

The plot is fast paced, and short to read. This was a good thing. However, this is described as a fantasy fairy tale with a dark twist. It wasn't. It was confusing at best. The descriptions were weird. One of the main characters is described as beautiful 'in a frozen lake sort of way', and another character as 'beery-looking'. What? It made no sense whatsoever. The sentences were also quite often worded strangely, and didn't really flow well together. This made it difficult to read at times.

The plot in this jumped around all over the place, stopping for a paragraph to suddenly explain the Coalition of Witches for instance, or jumping to what Magnus and Eleanoir were doing. This was jarring to the plot, and felt a little unnecessary. I would have preferred a more linear approach to the story telling.

I didn't feel any kind of connection to any of the characters. I found Maggie irritating and Deryn naive and a little stupid. They had no real depth to them, and were very one dimensional.

I also didn't like the illustrations. They seemed very childlike, but not in a good or ironic way, but rather an 'I think I can draw but I really cant' kind of way.

If this had been written in a more ironic style I perhaps would have enjoyed it more, but I think this was trying to come across as a 'proper' story, and I just didn't get it. I guess this just wasn't for me.

Deer Life is the debut story by Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith. It is an adult fairy tale involving a young boy named Deryn who goes out hunting in a nearby forest. Deryn's world is turned upside down when he has an unfortunate encounter with a witch and undergoes an unexpected transformation. Deryn's widowed mother searches for him in the forest and never gives up hope. Meanwhile, a young girl named Claira nurses and befriends a wounded deer who she decides to call Lucky. This is a quick, whimsical read.

I received this book for free from Netgalley and Dundurn Press in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I read this book as an advanced reading copy from Netgalley and hopefully when the book is published the pages and illustrations will be better. The story seems a little disjointed and has a lot of puns, some of which were good while others just sat there. The story started out well with the witch traveling across the kingdom but then sort of went several different directions.