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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Beautiful. Patricia McKillip proves once again she is an artist with words. Her sentences paint themselves across my mind into magical and delicate worlds that are so familiar to my heart and soul. There really is no other way to describe her writing. I feel like I can almost climb through the window she's built and into these absolutely beautiful stories. I want to be there. I want to see my reality in that same glittering way. Kinuko Craft's covers are perfectly paired with McKillip's fairytales.
Wow, the writing was amazing
the descriptions were really really good
sometimes the story was a little hard to follow, but i really liked it :)
the descriptions were really really good
sometimes the story was a little hard to follow, but i really liked it :)
I started reading this book a number of years ago and never finished. After having read it completely, I understand why I put it down the first time. While Winter Rose is a wonderful novel with great storytelling, you have to be ready to be pulled into the Winter Rose experience when you pick it up. The descriptions are beautiful, but they take over. Sometimes I felt like I was trapped in a haze of impressions rather than a novel, which is the perfect way to experience this book--but not if you're in the mood for a plain and simple story with a beginning, an end, and a middle bit that moves logically from one point to the next. If anything I'd say the best way to read Winter Rose is to savor the experience and trust Ms. McKillip to reveal everything in time.
Rois is the main character of the novel. When we meet her she's half-wild, used to running about the woods barefoot. She lives on the fringes of human society, anchored by her father, sister, and future brother-in-law. Her growth throughout the novel really impressed me--I never even noticed it was happening until it had happened. She becomes obsessed with finding out the truth about a man who has returned to the village; a man who is said to be cursed.
The characters feel real, the village setting is well done, and the story is well put-together. Definitely enjoyable!
Rois is the main character of the novel. When we meet her she's half-wild, used to running about the woods barefoot. She lives on the fringes of human society, anchored by her father, sister, and future brother-in-law. Her growth throughout the novel really impressed me--I never even noticed it was happening until it had happened. She becomes obsessed with finding out the truth about a man who has returned to the village; a man who is said to be cursed.
The characters feel real, the village setting is well done, and the story is well put-together. Definitely enjoyable!
I'm torn how to rate this book. It kept me reading - I couldn't put it down. But the ending was just more vague than I would have liked after all the build-up. McKillip's very flowery prose is also getting to me. Now that I've finished the books I had checked out from the library, I'm definitely taking a break from her for a while.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
https://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2020/12/2020-book-234.html
I’ve really been enjoying reading McKillip’s books, but this one did not do it for me. It’s both really slow and also suffused with a sense of dread, so just really unpleasant to read. It’s one of those fairy tales that’s more on the horrific side of fairy, except nothing really happens in this book! A dude comes to town and stories of curses rise up, and the woods are weird, and the protagonist is lovelorn and her sister is lovelorn, and winter is full of bad things, and it all just goes in circles. Ugh. B-.
I’ve really been enjoying reading McKillip’s books, but this one did not do it for me. It’s both really slow and also suffused with a sense of dread, so just really unpleasant to read. It’s one of those fairy tales that’s more on the horrific side of fairy, except nothing really happens in this book! A dude comes to town and stories of curses rise up, and the woods are weird, and the protagonist is lovelorn and her sister is lovelorn, and winter is full of bad things, and it all just goes in circles. Ugh. B-.
Thanks to the awesome Lara Mi for this buddy read - and for introducing me to McKillip last year. This book was a wonderful reading experience but became even more so because of all our discussions!
"My name is Rois, and I look nothing like a rose. The water told me that. Water never lies... My skin is not fit for fairy tales, since I liked to stand in light, with my eyes closed, my face turned upward toward the sun. That's how I saw him first: as a fall of light..."
I like weird stories about about weird characters who don't fit into the so called normal world. And Winter Rose was one such novel, layered in mysteries, thick with strange magic, revolving around two sisters, Rois and Laurel, who get caught up in a bizarre series of events following the arrival of Corbet Lynn and the resurgence of the family curse he's haunted by.
Genre, atmosphere, and writing style:
This book is loosely based on the Scottish ballad "Tam Lin". McKillip adapts the original and fashions it into something unique and fresh, multi-layered and wholly immersive.
The story has a "soft" magic system, with the magical elements forming a subtle but insistent background in the characters' lives, gradually strengthening as the story goes on. Things are slowly explained, and all the pieces fall neatly into place by the end, but for the most part, the story is made up of hints and clues that force you to pay attention as you try to untangle the mysteries within the story right along the characters.
That's one of the things that struck me most about this book: the complex, mysterious nature of the narrative. Sure, this is a YA fantasy, but it might as well be a mystery of sorts, from the way McKillip puts it on the page through the protagonist's eyes. Rois is a strange but highly perceptive character; everything is filtered through her first person narration, so much so, in fact, that you can't help but be immersed in what she's noticing and feeling and describing.
Add to it McKillip's trademark lyrical prose, and you've got a book that carries you away and drops you right into the middle of the wood itself and all its secrets.
A lot of the reviews mentioned the confusing nature of the events, so I was prepared to be cautious and maybe a little disappointed by the story, but the further I read, the more I realized that the surreal nature of the narration is exactly what makes it so appealing. The reader is sucked into the events, sucked into Rois's perspective. McKillip strategically uses her sensitive character to bring to life the narrative atmosphere and the changing seasons—the bright summer heat, the fiery flash of autumnal colors, the bleak and grey snows and winter skies—in such a way that you feel transported into the story.
That's something very rare that I don't experience in a lot of books.
Characters and relationships:
Of the two sisters, Rois is the strange one, the wild one. She might be my favorite part of the story. Her whimsical, woodsy nature contrasts sharply with her older sister Laurel, who has a more sensible, calmer personality. Unlike Rois, who everyone (including herself) assumes will probably never marry and settle down, Laurel is happily intending to marry her childhood sweetheart Perrin. I’m always excited to read stories that use this kind of sibling or sister yin-yang, especially when it isn't fraught with the more common sister-rivalry trope.
Rois spends most of her time in the woods, close to nature and in tune with its secrets, so no wonder she's the one who witnesses Corbet's mysterious arrival before anyone else does, and no wonder she's the one who sees through his façade of "normal" into his secrets. But that's not enough to keep her—or, surprisingly, her far more level-headed sister, Laurel—from being drawn into Corbet Lynn's mysteries.
Corbet's strangeness is very clear from the start, but it was weird to watch him interacting with Rois's family. As a reader, I was trying to figure out what his deal was, and how he felt about the other characters he was engaging with, and McKillip's clever trick is that that's exactly what the characters are doing too. He's never as fleshed out as Rois or Laurel, but a reader does come to know him more by the end.
Perrin, Laurel's intended match, was a minor character who piqued my interest every time he came on. It was interesting to watch him being forced out of his comfortable existence and thrown into chaos. Both he and Laurel, meant to be the steadier, rational characters, very much became drawn into the wildness and strangeness more fitting to the characters of Rois and Corbet. I think the story works as much through its plot as it does through its character dynamics.
Plot:
Since this is a highly atmospheric story relying on a lot of description, atmosphere, internal monologue, and, most of all, mystery, the plot isn't the dominant element here, even though it weaves throughout the novel. It's more like a background against which the characters act out their dramatic lives.
That said, I loved how McKillip unraveled the story thread by thread, clue by clue, all through Rois's eyes. The rumors about the curse—and the truth of what actually happened—work nicely together to create a rich texture that seems satisfying in its complexity but also rewarding in the way it finally resolves toward the end.
Final thoughts and rating:
4/5 stars.
This is my second book by McKillip (the first one being The Changeling Sea) and I plan on reading more of her works after this. Her prose, beautiful as always, seems far stronger in this one, as does the characterization. You'll enjoy this book if you like reading stories that contain lyrical prose, rich atmosphere, love triangles, and plots that are firmly rooted in characters and a thick layer of mystery.
The mystery's probably the key part and the reason some reviewers don't seem to appreciate the book, but if you're someone who loves puzzling out mysteries, then Winter Rose might just be the perfect read for you.
"My name is Rois, and I look nothing like a rose. The water told me that. Water never lies... My skin is not fit for fairy tales, since I liked to stand in light, with my eyes closed, my face turned upward toward the sun. That's how I saw him first: as a fall of light..."
I like weird stories about about weird characters who don't fit into the so called normal world. And Winter Rose was one such novel, layered in mysteries, thick with strange magic, revolving around two sisters, Rois and Laurel, who get caught up in a bizarre series of events following the arrival of Corbet Lynn and the resurgence of the family curse he's haunted by.
Genre, atmosphere, and writing style:
This book is loosely based on the Scottish ballad "Tam Lin". McKillip adapts the original and fashions it into something unique and fresh, multi-layered and wholly immersive.
The story has a "soft" magic system, with the magical elements forming a subtle but insistent background in the characters' lives, gradually strengthening as the story goes on. Things are slowly explained, and all the pieces fall neatly into place by the end, but for the most part, the story is made up of hints and clues that force you to pay attention as you try to untangle the mysteries within the story right along the characters.
That's one of the things that struck me most about this book: the complex, mysterious nature of the narrative. Sure, this is a YA fantasy, but it might as well be a mystery of sorts, from the way McKillip puts it on the page through the protagonist's eyes. Rois is a strange but highly perceptive character; everything is filtered through her first person narration, so much so, in fact, that you can't help but be immersed in what she's noticing and feeling and describing.
Add to it McKillip's trademark lyrical prose, and you've got a book that carries you away and drops you right into the middle of the wood itself and all its secrets.
A lot of the reviews mentioned the confusing nature of the events, so I was prepared to be cautious and maybe a little disappointed by the story, but the further I read, the more I realized that the surreal nature of the narration is exactly what makes it so appealing. The reader is sucked into the events, sucked into Rois's perspective. McKillip strategically uses her sensitive character to bring to life the narrative atmosphere and the changing seasons—the bright summer heat, the fiery flash of autumnal colors, the bleak and grey snows and winter skies—in such a way that you feel transported into the story.
That's something very rare that I don't experience in a lot of books.
Characters and relationships:
Of the two sisters, Rois is the strange one, the wild one. She might be my favorite part of the story. Her whimsical, woodsy nature contrasts sharply with her older sister Laurel, who has a more sensible, calmer personality. Unlike Rois, who everyone (including herself) assumes will probably never marry and settle down, Laurel is happily intending to marry her childhood sweetheart Perrin. I’m always excited to read stories that use this kind of sibling or sister yin-yang, especially when it isn't fraught with the more common sister-rivalry trope.
Rois spends most of her time in the woods, close to nature and in tune with its secrets, so no wonder she's the one who witnesses Corbet's mysterious arrival before anyone else does, and no wonder she's the one who sees through his façade of "normal" into his secrets. But that's not enough to keep her—or, surprisingly, her far more level-headed sister, Laurel—from being drawn into Corbet Lynn's mysteries.
Corbet's strangeness is very clear from the start, but it was weird to watch him interacting with Rois's family. As a reader, I was trying to figure out what his deal was, and how he felt about the other characters he was engaging with, and McKillip's clever trick is that that's exactly what the characters are doing too. He's never as fleshed out as Rois or Laurel, but a reader does come to know him more by the end.
Perrin, Laurel's intended match, was a minor character who piqued my interest every time he came on. It was interesting to watch him being forced out of his comfortable existence and thrown into chaos. Both he and Laurel, meant to be the steadier, rational characters, very much became drawn into the wildness and strangeness more fitting to the characters of Rois and Corbet. I think the story works as much through its plot as it does through its character dynamics.
Plot:
Since this is a highly atmospheric story relying on a lot of description, atmosphere, internal monologue, and, most of all, mystery, the plot isn't the dominant element here, even though it weaves throughout the novel. It's more like a background against which the characters act out their dramatic lives.
That said, I loved how McKillip unraveled the story thread by thread, clue by clue, all through Rois's eyes. The rumors about the curse—and the truth of what actually happened—work nicely together to create a rich texture that seems satisfying in its complexity but also rewarding in the way it finally resolves toward the end.
Final thoughts and rating:
4/5 stars.
This is my second book by McKillip (the first one being The Changeling Sea) and I plan on reading more of her works after this. Her prose, beautiful as always, seems far stronger in this one, as does the characterization. You'll enjoy this book if you like reading stories that contain lyrical prose, rich atmosphere, love triangles, and plots that are firmly rooted in characters and a thick layer of mystery.
The mystery's probably the key part and the reason some reviewers don't seem to appreciate the book, but if you're someone who loves puzzling out mysteries, then Winter Rose might just be the perfect read for you.
I wasn't sure what to rate this one, but I did stay up until 1:30 am to finish, so it must have been good! I think my hesitation is because Tam Lin has never been one of my favorite fairy tales. But this one was really well done and I was so drawn into the story. I loved Rois and her unconventional ways.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I like the way she writes, it's beautiful, but I don't like what she wrote about here. The characters were kind of wishy washy and lame, and I really wanted more out of them than that.