Customer Reviews

The Changeling: A Novel

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3 star:		(1)
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This amazing book focuses around the the life a woman who truly has an extraordinary life. Born into a poor family, her mother deceives her father and the village by calling Grey a boy. Grey spends her youth believing she is a boy, deformed and must keep her identity a secret. The time is during the 12th century when England is beginning to take over parts of Ireland. Poverty is rampant and the English are gobbling up villages and property and claiming them as their own.

When Grey discovers her true identity, she embarks on a strange journey trying to reconcile the years she spent as a male to the truth of her sex. She goes from being used, to being loved, to becoming a mother, and then continues to change throughout the book.

There were some sections of the book that where I thought "typical - woman is the victim". However, when I put the book down and began to think about it, Grey was a victim according to today's way of thinking. The author does an amazing job at presenting Grey as anything BUT a victim. She is more than just a woman, mother, wife, Irish, peasant, lover. Grey's character shows that there is more to a person then their sex. Someone isn't defined by their "station" in life - wife, mother, woman. Rather who they make themselves.

Great read. Fast paced and well written.

Kate Horsley has never failed to astound me with the books of hers I have read. "The Changeling", I feel, is an excellent follow up to her acclaimed novel, "Confessions of a Pagan Nun".
The setting is the 1300's in Ireland. Grey is a peasant girl who has been raised as a boy. When she realises her womanhood, it takes her on a journey of discovering an identity. As Ms. Horsley breaks it up for us, "Son", "Whore", "Warrior", and "Mother". Each of her identities and phases teaches her different lessons in life until the end when she realizes that nothing can exactly define her. The themes of the novel are the search for identity and in a stange way glory.
Through Grey's eyes, we see all the problems of the age. Including the residing of the Pope at Avignon, the corruption of the Catholic Church, and the smiting Black Death.
The characteristics Horsley gives to Grey lets us experience what is it to be a woman. I believe this is an important message for not only women all over the world, but men as well. Horsley, through Grey's various identities, gives us the complex psychology of a woman.
This is a beautiful story and just as incredible as "Confessions of a Pagan Nun". Once again, it is about discovering who you are. The smoothness of the writing carries you through the pages one by one until before you realize it, you are done.

I was awestruck by this novel. The fact that the author created such a dynamic character is amazing. Grey, born a girl and raised a boy.

A neat read, and about Ireland and the plague. There are some graphic sexual scenes, though, so beware.

I was disappointed in this book. Grey's life didn't really start until about 11 in the story and then was basically skimmed over till she went to the monastery and that was all about "pleasing a few monks" I didn't finish it. I stopped reading about the time she was going to leave the monastery. Quite graphic & crude sex terms.

A novel about gender is probably doomed to be a novel about sex, though of course the two are different. I was interested in the novel's premise. I've read a few stories about women masquerading as men, but Grey is raised to believe she's a boy. And I do enjoy the idea that this gives her resourcefulness and strength throughout her life, instead of being the occasion of a mental dislocation so severe that it drives her insane (I want to mention a title here but never want to ruin that book by Ian Banks for another reader). But I felt the plot missed the mark.

Better fed, better rested and better loved than her useless sisters, Grey has advantages that lead...nowhere. As soon as her femininity is discovered, it is exploited, and it runs and ruins her life. From boy to whore to mother, this is a predictable path and this is my disappointment. She wanted to be a warrior! I don't know. It seemed like a great opportunity squandered.

Also, though I had to constantly remind me that the pleasures of sex were free and therefore quite important to the peasant class of the 1300s, I got a little tired of the conversations, descriptions and activities always circling back round to the crudest of terms. It seemed like such a shortcut. I wanted to read more about the vagaries and duplicities and possibilities of gender, and less about parts.