Deerskin by Robin Mckinley

 This is a retelling of the story donkey skin. A short summery of the book would be; after the death of a girl's mother, her father abuses her out of grief and she runs away, and I think she takes her dog with her (it's been a while since I've read it). She kind of looses herself because of her grief at what her father did in the wilderness and after a while comes to this castle, wearing a deerskin dress, and they take her in and call her deerskin, and there's a prince etc. I won't spoil the ending.
 
There is an odd obsession with dogs in this book, and the girl (princess) has her own dog and also takes care of the prince's puppies. I don't have a dog or care about them much, so while fascinating, this part of the book didn't really draw me in and dragged on a bit at parts. There was a nice symbolism present and the heroine did regain a sense of herself and an acceptance of herself by the end of the book. Overall not my favourite read, but decent. Worth it if you put in the time, but nothing mind blowing.