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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
The story was more interesting than Beauty, but Beauty feels like a safe, warm hug
A lovely mind-bending retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
I... didn't know I was getting another retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley. I guess I'm not sure why this and Beauty are part of the same "trilogy"? It was good, but I guess I'm a little sick of Beauty and the Beast (and Stockholm Syndrome) at this point.
Far from a typical Beauty and the Beast take, I loved every moment in it, from start to finish.
Readable and charming like all of McKinley's work, but I'm firmly in the camp of her first version of the story (Beauty) was better
Maybe it was because I listened to this as an audiobook, but I found this novel so soothing--so soothing that it threatened to lull me to sleep sometimes. The gentle nature of the heroine, combined with her equanimity in the face of strange magic may have had something to do with it. It might have been how low-conflict the entire story was. It felt like a bedtime story told by someone who didn't want to scare me and give me bad dreams.
The story is more than familiar, of course. I'm forty-eight. I lost track of the versions of Beauty and the Beast I've read and seen and heard many many years ago.
I enjoyed that the sisters in this one were good people who loved their sister (no ugly rivalries and petty jealousies here). I appreciated that Beauty's quiet, unassuming nature didn't mean she was put-upon, ignored, or taken for granted by her family. I liked the way magic worked at the Beast's house. Beauty's adventures with bringing life back to the palace were fun. I especially enjoyed the hedgehogs and bats.
When we got to the explanation of how exactly the enchantment came about, it got very convoluted and I found myself tuning out. Wait, what? There's a third sorcerer? Who loved who? Huh? While McKinley is probably trying to explore the complex nature of truth, all these gray areas made for muddy reading.
It was a dreamy and quiet sort of book, which made a nice respite from some of the sex and violence I usually read, but it was maybe overall too dreamy and quiet to quite hold me.
The story is more than familiar, of course. I'm forty-eight. I lost track of the versions of Beauty and the Beast I've read and seen and heard many many years ago.
I enjoyed that the sisters in this one were good people who loved their sister (no ugly rivalries and petty jealousies here). I appreciated that Beauty's quiet, unassuming nature didn't mean she was put-upon, ignored, or taken for granted by her family. I liked the way magic worked at the Beast's house. Beauty's adventures with bringing life back to the palace were fun. I especially enjoyed the hedgehogs and bats.
When we got to the explanation of how exactly the enchantment came about, it got very convoluted and I found myself tuning out. Wait, what? There's a third sorcerer? Who loved who? Huh? While McKinley is probably trying to explore the complex nature of truth, all these gray areas made for muddy reading.
It was a dreamy and quiet sort of book, which made a nice respite from some of the sex and violence I usually read, but it was maybe overall too dreamy and quiet to quite hold me.
Twenty years after Beauty, McKinley retells "[b:Beauty and the Beast|41424|Beauty A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast|Robin McKinley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169613617s/41424.jpg|2321285]" once again. I liked this version better. The writing is beautiful and the story drew me in right away.
Beauty has few memories of her mother, who died when Beauty was very young. When her father's business fails, Beauty's family loses everything. One day, Beauty finds a will that leaves a home called Rose Cottage to her family. They leave the city, not knowing what they will find in their new home.
Beauty and her sisters, Jeweltongue and Lionheart, discover that they are happier in their small country cottage than they were in their fancy city house. Until the day that their father returns home from a visit to the city and tells them of his encounter with a mysterious and frightening Beast.
To save her father, Beauty goes to live in the Beast's castle. There, she becomes friends with the Beast and works to bring his once-beautiful rose garden back to life.
Though the ending still leaves a few questions unanswered, I thought the story behind the magical events was better told in this version than in Beauty.
Long sentences and some difficult vocabulary will make this version more enjoyable for those with higher-level reading abilities.
Beauty has few memories of her mother, who died when Beauty was very young. When her father's business fails, Beauty's family loses everything. One day, Beauty finds a will that leaves a home called Rose Cottage to her family. They leave the city, not knowing what they will find in their new home.
Beauty and her sisters, Jeweltongue and Lionheart, discover that they are happier in their small country cottage than they were in their fancy city house. Until the day that their father returns home from a visit to the city and tells them of his encounter with a mysterious and frightening Beast.
To save her father, Beauty goes to live in the Beast's castle. There, she becomes friends with the Beast and works to bring his once-beautiful rose garden back to life.
Though the ending still leaves a few questions unanswered, I thought the story behind the magical events was better told in this version than in Beauty.
Long sentences and some difficult vocabulary will make this version more enjoyable for those with higher-level reading abilities.
I much preferred Beauty, McKinley's other Beauty and the Beast retelling. Rose Daughter just seemed to drag, and I was not a fan of the ending.
Loved it with all of my cold, dead heart. The writing- fantastic. The descriptions- fantastic. The plot- realistic for, ya know, a story about magic. The characters were well rounded, each had depth and their own personality. The sisters all had their own path to take and all had more to them then just one being sharp with her words, one being beautiful, and the other being brave as heck.
There were a few downfalls-
-The amount of time Beauty spent with Beast was only 7 days for them at the castle, which, in my opinion, isn't enough time to know someone and fall in love with them. If not for the fact that it is what it is, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I wouldn't be as down for the plot as much as I am.
-The other major flaw I saw, which isn't huge in itself anyway, was the father in the end of the book. He was to go and find some way to get back to his daughter, whom he hasn't heard word from in 7 months, and that's the last we hear of him. It instilled minor dread in me that he would do what Gaston does in Disney's version, storm the castle without a care to who's in it. Obviously that doesn't happen, but he isn't heard from again. It didn't feel complete to me I guess because their father was such a large part of their lives, and the conclusion didn't have him in it.
Overall, I loved the book. As a gardener myself, I really enjoyed that being such a large part of the book and plot.
There were a few downfalls-
-The amount of time Beauty spent with Beast was only 7 days for them at the castle, which, in my opinion, isn't enough time to know someone and fall in love with them. If not for the fact that it is what it is, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, I wouldn't be as down for the plot as much as I am.
-The other major flaw I saw, which isn't huge in itself anyway, was the father in the end of the book. He was to go and find some way to get back to his daughter, whom he hasn't heard word from in 7 months, and that's the last we hear of him. It instilled minor dread in me that he would do what Gaston does in Disney's version, storm the castle without a care to who's in it. Obviously that doesn't happen, but he isn't heard from again. It didn't feel complete to me I guess because their father was such a large part of their lives, and the conclusion didn't have him in it.
Overall, I loved the book. As a gardener myself, I really enjoyed that being such a large part of the book and plot.
Erg. I read and liked McKinley's earlier retelling of [b:Beauty and the Beast|41424|Beauty A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast|Robin McKinley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169613617s/41424.jpg|2321285], and while there are some interesting new elements, and it feels more mature on the whole, the story is also somewhat plodding for the first two thirds and then impossibly rushed for the last third, and I wasn't quite sure what was happening in the final twenty pages or so except that it was really boring and confusing. There are about six pages of straight-up exposition from a figure who has, until now, been mysterious and shadowy, and on the whole I didn't feel there was anything new until the end...
[spoilers:]
I've actually played with the idea that a human prince would not feel the same to Beauty in a short story, but while keeping him a beast is an interesting change, I literally wasn't sure that that was what had happened until I hopped over here to read the reviews. McKinley didn't really do anything with it, and after pages of opaque and rambling description, it was annoying to have the one original element of the story get buried at the end.
[spoilers:]
I've actually played with the idea that a human prince would not feel the same to Beauty in a short story, but while keeping him a beast is an interesting change, I literally wasn't sure that that was what had happened until I hopped over here to read the reviews. McKinley didn't really do anything with it, and after pages of opaque and rambling description, it was annoying to have the one original element of the story get buried at the end.