A review by sarah_the_bold
The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley

2.0

The Door in the Hedge is a collection of fairy tale retellings. There are 4 stories, and they are longer than short stories but shorter than novellas. I have liked other Robin McKinley books in the past, but this one did not impress me. I like fairy tales, and I think if you're going to re-tell one, you should have a good reason. These ones all introduced elements that weren't in the original, but I never could really figure out why. Perhaps the most auspicious start is the Twelve Dancing Princesses, which proposes that the man who solves the mystery of the princesses is an old soldier. So you may imagine that being an old soldier gives him skills that the young princes who have made the attempt before didn't have, growing up in ease and plenty. And that is hinted at, but really the reason he solves the riddle is that a magical old lady just happened to give him an invisibility cloak. And he still marries a princess he barely knows and somehow everyone lives happily ever after.
It may seem like I'm just hating on fairy tales, and I don't mean to. I appreciate the genre, and I think McKinley writes it well. But the reason I read this book is because I expected to read something original, and I didn't find that here.