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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
The book moved kind of slowly and I kinda felt a bit cheated by the ending. However, the story as a whole managed to keep my interest even though I was a little thrown off by the mountains of description and limited amount of dialogue.
I liked this variation on the story of Sleeping Beauty (or Briar-Rose). It is familiar enough to be friendly and different enough to keep you intrigued. I also like the independence shown in the female characters.
Too bad the writing is not as smooth as it could have been, because the story is really good and the characters are interesting, but it's a bit too long and I got easily distracted while I was reading it XD
I usually love Robin McKinley; some of my favorite books, The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, were written by her. This book is good, but I felt the story was a little simplistic and the characters not as well fleshed out as some of her other books. Still, definitely worth the read, as are her other books that are reinterpretations of famous fairytales.
I was feeling in need of a comforting re-read, so I chose the audiobook version to listen to at work. It had been several years since I'd read it, so I had honestly forgotten almost everything. I liked the folksy, whimsical nature of the story. The subversion of all the fairies' gifts was very clever and there's a lot of the talking-to-animals fun that McKinley uses in most of her stories. Overall it did feel a bit too slow, kind of like taking a long but not very strenuous hike and getting to the end only to find out the view isn't as amazing as you thought it would be. But you're still glad of the exercise! It was a perfectly nice, relaxing interlude in the midst of a lot of new reads, so it served me well.
I've read this probably once a year since I first read it at 11 and to this day (and 24 years later) it remains my number one favorite book.
If you love retold fairy tales, this book will delight you and keep you guessing.
This is honestly one of my favorite books but the ending doesn't match the brilliance of the rest of the book. She writes s spunky sleeping beauty tale with lots of well written characters however the ending is a bit confusing and the relationship is awkward at best and creepy at worst.
i love fairy tales! Spindles End is obviously, sleeping beauty. This was done in a more typical fairy tale type style, not a modern type of retelling, but whereas in the disney type versions, it's all about the prince, here it's all about the women. i LOVE LOVE the princess and her personality. Really, all the characters were so likeable, although i wish they didn't switch completely over from Katriona once she got fully grown up. Anyway, good retelling of a classic tale, pick it up!