Dingo

by Charles De Lint

[empressbrooke]

Charles de Lint has said that when he writes YA novels, he doesn't dumb down the stories; he just writes stories about younger people. He's been very successful with this approach in the past (last year's [b:The Blue Girl|7572|Even Cowgirls Get the Blues|Tom Robbins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165636478s/7572.jpg|610037] was fantastic), but Dingo seems like a step backwards from this philosophy.

It's a fairly pleasant tale about twin girls who are dingos (part of the "cousins" who populate many of de Lint's works) and the human boys who fall in love with them, but I thought that most of his short stories had more depth than this book.

It also suffered from the "boy and girl meet and fall in love within seconds of knowing each other" plot device, and even though the characters repeatedly acknowledge it and comment on how weird it is, it just never seems natural.

De Lint could probably write about grass growing and I'd enjoy it, but he's definitely capable of more than he gave here.