Dingo by Charles de Lint

Dingo is a YA novel that tells the story of a young woman who has the ability to turn into a dingo because she is a descendant of the original animal people from the beginning of the world. Her breeding causes problems for her and her family when other animal people need her for a mysterious ritual. Fleeing Australia to Canada to find safety, Lainey meets Miguel and together they hatch a plan to win her freedom.

Charles de Lint is recycling previous material for this book. He has written multiple tales of a normal human who meets a mythic being, gets sucked into a dreamworld, and then has to work his or her way back home, and the repeat of this plotline left Dingo feeling stale and uninspired. There was nothing new or innovative in the way he handled this story, and even more disturbing was the way that the Australian mythology felt grafted on to the Na... Read More