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rebeccacider 's review for:
Spindle's End
by Robin McKinley
I feel bad giving this book so few stars. But I honestly can't say that I enjoyed it. I actually skipped parts, and the darn thing was only 300 or so pages long.
McKinley is a good writer; she produces gorgeous and very funny prose, she's a master worldbuilder, and she creates believable characters and complex plots. I would have happily read the short story version of this novel. But I got bored at about the hundred page mark.
The reason I got bored is that this novel began with Rosie's birth (as it had to) and ended with the events surrounding her twenty-first birthday (as it had to). In the meantime, we had to watch Rosie grow up. And it was BORING.
It was boring, first of all, because of the style. McKinley *tells* the story rather than shows it, especially in the middle, and she is such a lovely writer that it almost works. Except that all of her pretty words actually form a barrier between us and the characters. Rosie and the others are interesting enough that we really could have fallen in love with them and rooted for them at the end. However, we're told what Rosie is like rather than witnessing what she's like, and as a result reading about her is not very compelling. In addition, whenever McKinley tries to create an emotional response with dramatic language, the subtle beauty of the words falls flat because it comes out of nowhere; all of a sudden this character who we don't really know all that well is having a poetical life-changing moment, and I'm left wondering, why? And so what?
Conclusion: Even writers who are super brilliant aren't allowed to break the "show don't tell" rule in long form fiction unless the story demands it. Not the story they think they're telling, the story that they're actually telling.
The other problem was that, oh yeah, NOTHING HAPPENED. It was about the characters and not the plot, and these characters were not dynamic enough to carry the story. Of course good characters don't have to be dynamic. In Coraline, the titular character is not, when you stop to think about it, a super dynamic or complex character, but she's believable and likable and as a result we're rooting for her every moment. The difference is that Coraline is always doing something, always in danger. By giving us a long middle in which there's only occasional danger, McKinley put the onus of interest on her characters, and thus fails.
I also have found that I generally dislike stories with friendly animal helpers. Did she really expect us to remember all of the names of the different animals? But I can accept that this might just be my problem.
I know a lot of people really like Spindle's End, and I do think it had a lot to like (how 'bout that worldbuilding)? I also know that it's often shelved as a children's or YA book (although I got it from the adult's section), so faulting it for a lack of complexity is perhaps not fair. But there are so many children's books that are super enjoyable for adults to read that I'm not going to give this one a pass on that account.
Not writing off McKinley entirely - I liked Beauty when I read it in high school! But I think I'll skip ahead a hundred pages in the next thing I read by her, to make sure that abrupt boredom does not ensue.
McKinley is a good writer; she produces gorgeous and very funny prose, she's a master worldbuilder, and she creates believable characters and complex plots. I would have happily read the short story version of this novel. But I got bored at about the hundred page mark.
The reason I got bored is that this novel began with Rosie's birth (as it had to) and ended with the events surrounding her twenty-first birthday (as it had to). In the meantime, we had to watch Rosie grow up. And it was BORING.
It was boring, first of all, because of the style. McKinley *tells* the story rather than shows it, especially in the middle, and she is such a lovely writer that it almost works. Except that all of her pretty words actually form a barrier between us and the characters. Rosie and the others are interesting enough that we really could have fallen in love with them and rooted for them at the end. However, we're told what Rosie is like rather than witnessing what she's like, and as a result reading about her is not very compelling. In addition, whenever McKinley tries to create an emotional response with dramatic language, the subtle beauty of the words falls flat because it comes out of nowhere; all of a sudden this character who we don't really know all that well is having a poetical life-changing moment, and I'm left wondering, why? And so what?
Conclusion: Even writers who are super brilliant aren't allowed to break the "show don't tell" rule in long form fiction unless the story demands it. Not the story they think they're telling, the story that they're actually telling.
The other problem was that, oh yeah, NOTHING HAPPENED. It was about the characters and not the plot, and these characters were not dynamic enough to carry the story. Of course good characters don't have to be dynamic. In Coraline, the titular character is not, when you stop to think about it, a super dynamic or complex character, but she's believable and likable and as a result we're rooting for her every moment. The difference is that Coraline is always doing something, always in danger. By giving us a long middle in which there's only occasional danger, McKinley put the onus of interest on her characters, and thus fails.
I also have found that I generally dislike stories with friendly animal helpers. Did she really expect us to remember all of the names of the different animals? But I can accept that this might just be my problem.
I know a lot of people really like Spindle's End, and I do think it had a lot to like (how 'bout that worldbuilding)? I also know that it's often shelved as a children's or YA book (although I got it from the adult's section), so faulting it for a lack of complexity is perhaps not fair. But there are so many children's books that are super enjoyable for adults to read that I'm not going to give this one a pass on that account.
Not writing off McKinley entirely - I liked Beauty when I read it in high school! But I think I'll skip ahead a hundred pages in the next thing I read by her, to make sure that abrupt boredom does not ensue.