Helpful Score: 6
A very enjoyable view of Sleeping Beauty. Robin McKinley writes another wonderful book.
Helpful Score: 3
I was actually disappointed in this book of McKinley's. All of her books have been fun of great adventure and much fantasy and while this book had all the usual content it was very, very hard to get into and moved really slow. I really liked her beauty and the beast adaptation MUCH better. I would not recommend this novel, not when her other books are so outstanding! I guess since her books are usually so wonderful this one fell flat, I didn't end up finishing it.
Helpful Score: 3
I love Spindle's End. While some might find it hard to get into (the first chapter is mostly just description), I was enchanted by it. McKinley slowly draws the reader into the story, and then adds layer after layer to make this world and these characters very real and very life-like. It's a lavish and beautifully told story...and an old one--the story of Sleeping Beauty--but McKinley puts a twist on it that makes it uniquely hers.
Helpful Score: 3
This is one of McKinley's strongest works to date, and it makes me laugh to think that she essentially wrote it on a dare. From what she's said on her website, she had no love for the sleeping beauty myth -- after all, the princess spends it completely useless and out of the action, exactly opposite McKinley's usual heroines. The story she crafted in response to the fairy tale beautifully recasts the outside of the tale (the curse, the fairy godmothers, the spelled sleep, and rose hedge) with a new interior, upending the usual story into one in which the princess is a real person that the reader cares deeply for -- and a person who is instrumental in her own salvation, rather than a bystander to it.
But beyond the female empowerment coming-of-age tale are the glimpses of depth all of McKinley's best stories have: explorations of what family means, and the necessity of acting with courage and compassion even when it may leave you vulnerable to dark forces. The moments I loved best about this novel are when McKinley shows us that even the best ending, the one that leaves everyone happiest, may still have unexpected sharp edges, little bits of pain that come with gaining a great victory at the cost of something you didn't necessarily value in the first place. The unexpected resolution to the story (even more unexpected because it continues to remain true to the outside form of the sleeping beauty fairy tale) is brilliant and winning and just the tiniest bit bittersweet.
Even laying aside how wonderful the novel ends, it is a joy from start to finish. It has more humor than any other McKinley work, and the Gig (and Woodwold within it) is certainly one of McKinley's most delightful worlds. For those who have read her obsessively (as I have) there are even hints that this is Damar, the world of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, many generations later, and it is implied that the princess' mother comes from the kingdom that Lissar settled in in Deerskin. On rereading, I am even further convinced that this is one of my favorite novels of all time.
But beyond the female empowerment coming-of-age tale are the glimpses of depth all of McKinley's best stories have: explorations of what family means, and the necessity of acting with courage and compassion even when it may leave you vulnerable to dark forces. The moments I loved best about this novel are when McKinley shows us that even the best ending, the one that leaves everyone happiest, may still have unexpected sharp edges, little bits of pain that come with gaining a great victory at the cost of something you didn't necessarily value in the first place. The unexpected resolution to the story (even more unexpected because it continues to remain true to the outside form of the sleeping beauty fairy tale) is brilliant and winning and just the tiniest bit bittersweet.
Even laying aside how wonderful the novel ends, it is a joy from start to finish. It has more humor than any other McKinley work, and the Gig (and Woodwold within it) is certainly one of McKinley's most delightful worlds. For those who have read her obsessively (as I have) there are even hints that this is Damar, the world of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, many generations later, and it is implied that the princess' mother comes from the kingdom that Lissar settled in in Deerskin. On rereading, I am even further convinced that this is one of my favorite novels of all time.
Helpful Score: 2
All the creatures of the forest and field and riverbank knew the infant was special. She was the princess, spirited away from the evil fairy Pernicia on her name-day. But the curse was cast: Rosie was fated to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a poisoned sleep--a slumber from which no one would be able to rouse her...
This is an imaginative retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty by the author of THE BLUE SWORD, THE HERO AND THE CROWN,THE OUTLAWS OF SHERWOOD, THE DOOR IN THE HEDGE, and DEERSKIN. It has a few unique twists, and I give it 5 stars!
This is an imaginative retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty by the author of THE BLUE SWORD, THE HERO AND THE CROWN,THE OUTLAWS OF SHERWOOD, THE DOOR IN THE HEDGE, and DEERSKIN. It has a few unique twists, and I give it 5 stars!
