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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
I liked it but the end was confusing and could use some work I think. I wasn't sure what was going on. Though I did like how it ended and what ultimately ended up happening but I wasn't fond of the way it was written.
I reread this book once a year or so (along with McKinley's other retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Beauty). I love it. It's not for everyone, but I think it's wonderful.
Reading this again after many years to fill a phase in which no book really fits comfortably. I'm trying to read Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory, Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog, the latest (or next-to-latest) C.S. Harris, and what feels like half a dozen other books. So far, this is the one that stuck.
I'm enjoying it, I started Beauty by McKinley first and this seems to be more complex. The other one starts off feeling more fairy-tale. In this one, the roses are almost a character themselves. I love Beauty's sisters in this one, and I am pretty sure I enjoy all the silly, literal character names.
I'm enjoying it, I started Beauty by McKinley first and this seems to be more complex. The other one starts off feeling more fairy-tale. In this one, the roses are almost a character themselves. I love Beauty's sisters in this one, and I am pretty sure I enjoy all the silly, literal character names.
McKinley revisits the Beauty and the Beast tale twenty years after her first, beautiful version. It's a very different and very lovely tale, in some ways more mature, but it felt rushed to me. I believe she wrote in the introduction that she had written this version very quickly, and it shows. I felt there were a lot of loose ends, tantalizing threads that she started to weave in and then just dropped. All the same, I enjoyed reading it very much. The first version, Beauty, is still the best.
I really liked this take on the Beauty and the Beast legend, probably because I'm a gardener, and McKinley is clearly a real gardener too. The reverential way she treats compost is worth the price of admission. I do find her writing style to be a little lush for my tastes sometimes, and this book is a good example of that lushness. It's very romantic, of course. I loved the cat parts almost as much as the garden parts.
A little bit Disney, a little bit Cocteau, and every bit a dream. There is no build and little pacing. Events happen as they happen. Characters rise and fall and at the center of it is Beauty and her two fascinating sisters. When the Beast arrives you are frustrated because he is never ever as interesting as Beauty's sisters. The two principle characters are remarkably static and it borders on annoying.
I’ve read this book more times than I can remember. It’s not my first McKinley - that’d be Hero and the Crown, way back in the day. It was published in 1997, and I didn’t read it till it came out in paperback, so I’m guessing I probably first read it around age ten. It’s been fifteen years since then, and I definitely enjoy it more now than I did then. (I really liked it then)
The first thing to know about Rose Daughter is that of McKinley’s canon, it is not aimed at the youngest demographic. I read it around ten, but I don’t think I really got most of what there was to get for another five or six years. There are reasonably complex moral questions, but even more importantly, Beauty is an adult, who thinks like an adult and acts like an adult and reacts like an adult. If you’re looking for a retelling of Beauty and the Beast to give to your preteen or early adolescent, or you are a preteen or early adolescent (hi!), you’d probably want to read Beauty (also by Robin McKinley) first. It’s aimed a little younger, it sticks closer to the fairy tale we’re all familiar with. And there’s a lot less gardening.
Naturally, as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, it follows the plot we all know and love. Rich merchant with three beautiful daughters and no wife loses money, goes to live in the countryside, hears about some possible cash flow, goes to get it after asking his daughters what they want. Probably one says jewels, one says silks. The youngest always asks for a rose. What McKinley does here that makes this book so memorable and so easy to reread is give all of the characters… character. The arc of leaving the city and settling in the countryside is very well-handled, in that it takes them awhile to adjust, it isn’t always easy, and there’s a lot of being brave for each other’s sakes, but gradually they adapt and begin to thrive in their new environment, discovering new aspects to themselves through their changes in circumstance and perspective. I also liked that the period of adjustment for the countryside begins before they get there. Lionheart, the eldest, does her best to feed the family. Jeweltongue, the middle daughter, works to clothe them in the remnants they have left in their echoing mansion. The father doesn’t adjust, but goes through a realistic and understandable shutdown period after the loss of everything he had.
As for Beauty herself, well. One of the things I love about this novel is that it attempts to describe the nature of inner beauty without ever verbalizing it. Sometimes it gets a little trite - Beauty is prone to rescuing and reassuring animals - but her patient attempts to improve the lives of those around her are an excellent illustration of the concept of beauty as a thing, quality, or experience that lends lasting satisfaction or pleasure. Before they lose their money, she’s mostly aesthetically beautiful, in terms of her appearance and the aesthetics she lends to the household (flower arranging, etc), but after the disaster, she demonstrated qualities of bravery, generosity of spirit, and intelligence, in very ordinary ways. She talks to creditors, she keeps the peace in the household, she learns how to do well tasks she doesn’t particularly enjoy or feel she is suited to, like balancing the books and making cheese. As a character, she’s just a girl who is faced with a daunting challenge, and sets to it with very little drama or fuss. This is the sort of beauty the book is talking about, and it’s that beauty that makes her lovable, both to us and to the other characters in the book.
I mentioned earlier that it gets a bit heavy-handed. One of the primary images in the book is roses. McKinley herself is an avid rose gardener, and some paragraphs are basically love songs to roses with occasional bits of practical rose-gardening know-how. However, in the book, it’s said that it’s only magic or love that will make roses grow, and Beauty is not particularly magical. She loves her flowers, and they grow for her. It’s a bit obvious, but I’ll give it to her - it’s a fairytale, and fairytales don’t believe in subtle symbolism. Beauty herself questions her name at the beginning - her sisters are as beautiful in appearance as her, and they’re named for the qualities that they exemplify, bravery and wit. She wonders if there’s so little of her there that her appearance is all they could find to name her after. This question eventually goes away, which I enjoy - its absence suggests that, in the real world, with work to do, it’s just not a question that really matters to her anymore. But the question of what beauty is, okay, that was a little obvious too.
Another problem I have with the book is that the dialogue can be confusing. There’s one character, in particular, who’s cursed with this habit of oblique statements - towards the end, when she’s telling her story, you can tell you’re supposed to be reading between the lines but there’s not enough there to quite manage it. You get the general shape of it, but it’s still sort of hard to follow. The ending, too, is a little rushed and confusing. Taking the time to stop and picture things mostly makes me giggle; the sense of movement in the ending is very clear, but the actual imagery used to achieve this is a bit silly, and what exactly is going on is hard to say.
On the other hand, most of the imagery in the book is rich and narration-appropriate. McKinley handles the dizzying, time-warping nature of the Beast’s palace very well. The shifting, uncomfortable nature of the palace comes through quite clearly, and our shock mirrors hers when she discovers that the week she thought had passed had, in fact, been seven days. It also handles the question of the Beast’s aging quite nicely.
The very best thing about this book, though, is that the Beast stays a Beast. When she chooses him, and tells him she loves him, he doesn’t magically turn back into a man again, or possess his palace with all the wealth that it contains. She’s actually given a choice - have him be a man, or have him stay the Beast she knows, and she has a very good reason for choosing to keep him a Beast beyond the familiarity of it. I love that McKinley thought through some of the consequences of having the Beast transform back into the prince - she makes some excellent points. There are more, of course - cultural and economic ramifications of suddenly having a palace from four hundred years ago or whenever randomly appear in your local forest, especially since the land rights would definitely have shifted over that period of time - but she handles some of the personal consequences of the choice very well.
A final caveat - while there are some imperfect aspects, this is overall a really well-written book with excellent characterization, plagued only by the minor heavy-handed symbolism problems and the mistiness McKinley is prone to. However, at the end when the Beast releases Beauty to go to her family, he tells her he will die without her. It’s perfectly, one hundred percent true - he nearly does die without her. However, it’s manipulative and it makes me for one uncomfortable.
tl;dr - great book, best for high school students, could be a good one to discuss in a book club or class. Warning for potentially triggering scene involving emotional manipulation.
The first thing to know about Rose Daughter is that of McKinley’s canon, it is not aimed at the youngest demographic. I read it around ten, but I don’t think I really got most of what there was to get for another five or six years. There are reasonably complex moral questions, but even more importantly, Beauty is an adult, who thinks like an adult and acts like an adult and reacts like an adult. If you’re looking for a retelling of Beauty and the Beast to give to your preteen or early adolescent, or you are a preteen or early adolescent (hi!), you’d probably want to read Beauty (also by Robin McKinley) first. It’s aimed a little younger, it sticks closer to the fairy tale we’re all familiar with. And there’s a lot less gardening.
Naturally, as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, it follows the plot we all know and love. Rich merchant with three beautiful daughters and no wife loses money, goes to live in the countryside, hears about some possible cash flow, goes to get it after asking his daughters what they want. Probably one says jewels, one says silks. The youngest always asks for a rose. What McKinley does here that makes this book so memorable and so easy to reread is give all of the characters… character. The arc of leaving the city and settling in the countryside is very well-handled, in that it takes them awhile to adjust, it isn’t always easy, and there’s a lot of being brave for each other’s sakes, but gradually they adapt and begin to thrive in their new environment, discovering new aspects to themselves through their changes in circumstance and perspective. I also liked that the period of adjustment for the countryside begins before they get there. Lionheart, the eldest, does her best to feed the family. Jeweltongue, the middle daughter, works to clothe them in the remnants they have left in their echoing mansion. The father doesn’t adjust, but goes through a realistic and understandable shutdown period after the loss of everything he had.
As for Beauty herself, well. One of the things I love about this novel is that it attempts to describe the nature of inner beauty without ever verbalizing it. Sometimes it gets a little trite - Beauty is prone to rescuing and reassuring animals - but her patient attempts to improve the lives of those around her are an excellent illustration of the concept of beauty as a thing, quality, or experience that lends lasting satisfaction or pleasure. Before they lose their money, she’s mostly aesthetically beautiful, in terms of her appearance and the aesthetics she lends to the household (flower arranging, etc), but after the disaster, she demonstrated qualities of bravery, generosity of spirit, and intelligence, in very ordinary ways. She talks to creditors, she keeps the peace in the household, she learns how to do well tasks she doesn’t particularly enjoy or feel she is suited to, like balancing the books and making cheese. As a character, she’s just a girl who is faced with a daunting challenge, and sets to it with very little drama or fuss. This is the sort of beauty the book is talking about, and it’s that beauty that makes her lovable, both to us and to the other characters in the book.
I mentioned earlier that it gets a bit heavy-handed. One of the primary images in the book is roses. McKinley herself is an avid rose gardener, and some paragraphs are basically love songs to roses with occasional bits of practical rose-gardening know-how. However, in the book, it’s said that it’s only magic or love that will make roses grow, and Beauty is not particularly magical. She loves her flowers, and they grow for her. It’s a bit obvious, but I’ll give it to her - it’s a fairytale, and fairytales don’t believe in subtle symbolism. Beauty herself questions her name at the beginning - her sisters are as beautiful in appearance as her, and they’re named for the qualities that they exemplify, bravery and wit. She wonders if there’s so little of her there that her appearance is all they could find to name her after. This question eventually goes away, which I enjoy - its absence suggests that, in the real world, with work to do, it’s just not a question that really matters to her anymore. But the question of what beauty is, okay, that was a little obvious too.
Another problem I have with the book is that the dialogue can be confusing. There’s one character, in particular, who’s cursed with this habit of oblique statements - towards the end, when she’s telling her story, you can tell you’re supposed to be reading between the lines but there’s not enough there to quite manage it. You get the general shape of it, but it’s still sort of hard to follow. The ending, too, is a little rushed and confusing. Taking the time to stop and picture things mostly makes me giggle; the sense of movement in the ending is very clear, but the actual imagery used to achieve this is a bit silly, and what exactly is going on is hard to say.
On the other hand, most of the imagery in the book is rich and narration-appropriate. McKinley handles the dizzying, time-warping nature of the Beast’s palace very well. The shifting, uncomfortable nature of the palace comes through quite clearly, and our shock mirrors hers when she discovers that the week she thought had passed had, in fact, been seven days. It also handles the question of the Beast’s aging quite nicely.
The very best thing about this book, though, is that the Beast stays a Beast. When she chooses him, and tells him she loves him, he doesn’t magically turn back into a man again, or possess his palace with all the wealth that it contains. She’s actually given a choice - have him be a man, or have him stay the Beast she knows, and she has a very good reason for choosing to keep him a Beast beyond the familiarity of it. I love that McKinley thought through some of the consequences of having the Beast transform back into the prince - she makes some excellent points. There are more, of course - cultural and economic ramifications of suddenly having a palace from four hundred years ago or whenever randomly appear in your local forest, especially since the land rights would definitely have shifted over that period of time - but she handles some of the personal consequences of the choice very well.
A final caveat - while there are some imperfect aspects, this is overall a really well-written book with excellent characterization, plagued only by the minor heavy-handed symbolism problems and the mistiness McKinley is prone to. However, at the end when the Beast releases Beauty to go to her family, he tells her he will die without her. It’s perfectly, one hundred percent true - he nearly does die without her. However, it’s manipulative and it makes me for one uncomfortable.
tl;dr - great book, best for high school students, could be a good one to discuss in a book club or class. Warning for potentially triggering scene involving emotional manipulation.
I've read this book in paper before, and I've always loved it. This time around, I listened to the audiobook in an attempt to get in some extra reading time and take advantage of my audible membership. I have conflicting feelings about the audio. On the one hand, the narrator was wonderful, and it was a really well-produced book. On the other, I discovered that I apparently skim a great deal when I read the paper version, because there were segments that dragged. I knew McKinley was the queen of long and luscious description, but MAN.
I still love this book, but I think I may stick to the text version from now on. Or at least fast-forward a bit during the audio. ;-)
I still love this book, but I think I may stick to the text version from now on. Or at least fast-forward a bit during the audio. ;-)
This was beautiful and I LOVED the changes Robin Mckinley made to the story - I was worried Beauty's sisters were going to be secretly evil or something but NO they were awesome and supportive and actually changed for the better and so did she.
The casual magic felt so nice and real in a way a lot of times it doesn't, in a lot of fantasy, but here it fit perfectly and the little mentions made the story that much more enjoyable.
There is a lot...of descriptors...like...so many. It straddles the line between 'way too wordy' and 'pulling you into the story' perfectly in my opinion, but I can see how it would be a dealbreaker for some people.
This might be my favourite interpretation of this fairy tale.
The casual magic felt so nice and real in a way a lot of times it doesn't, in a lot of fantasy, but here it fit perfectly and the little mentions made the story that much more enjoyable.
There is a lot...of descriptors...like...so many. It straddles the line between 'way too wordy' and 'pulling you into the story' perfectly in my opinion, but I can see how it would be a dealbreaker for some people.
This might be my favourite interpretation of this fairy tale.