Dingo by Charles de Lint

Date Published: 2008, Firebird.
ISBN: 014 - 240 - 816 - 6
# of Pages: 224

I acquired this book at a bookstore in the mall that has since closed down when I was roughly 17. I read it immediately then and put it aside for a few years until last summer when I read through it again to my boyfriend. We both enjoyed it for its magical qualities but took some issues with it that, while they didn't completely detract from the enjoyability of the writing, made me a bit hesitant to read more work by this author (though I read and enjoyed Wolf Moon some years back and have been considering revisiting it for some time...)

The story is fairly simple. A young teen in a coastal town meets a girl who has moved there from Australia. Together, he and his rival (and a town bully) learn that this girl has a twin sister and that both girls are *actually* dingoes that have the ability to turn into humans. They very quickly rely on them to get them out of trouble with another dingo named Warrigal who has threatened to marry them against their will in order to obtain power that they hold.

I thought that the first-person narrative sounded a little forced and I was really disappointed about the excess romance, but I guess that is actually fairly typical for YA fantasy. I loved the world that de Lint created and thought that was fairly redeeming but I was very back and forth about the characters. I ended up liking Johnny the most (the main character Miguel's rival). The entire time I couldn't decide if my issue was that I was at the point where I already had trouble relating to teenagers and teenage-concerns or if the author was actually just very bad at relating those concerns in a believable way. I often felt pulled out of the story because I simply didn't read the narrator's voice as a teenage-voice.

In any case, my other major issue was the very uncomfortable way that de Lint warped and used Aboriginal mythology in his story which did not even attempt to be accurate and seemed a lot like cultural misappropriation. I would have enjoyed the mythology he created a lot more if he had just made it from scratch rather than very obviously try to draw on already extant mythology and customs. It just struck me as rather disrespectful.

All-in-all it was an interesting read for several reasons but certainly wasn't anything spectacular and had some major issues that I think needed some double-checking and polishing prior to being published. I haven't heard very much about it since it was published and so I don't think it really sustained any long-term interest and I can't say I'm very surprised.