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A review by celiapowell
Spindle's End by Robin McKinley
3.0
A long-awaited baby princess, a naming day with a group of fairy godmothers waiting to bestow their magical gifts, and a young girl from a small village watching from the audience, right before disaster occurs. Yep, this is a re-telling of the classic fairytale about that curse by the evil fairy involving spinning wheels, and sleeping for a hundred years.
As you would expect from Robin McKinley, this is a tremendously original take on the fairytale, which starts fairly conventially, and goes into very different places. I loved Rosie, our princess in exile, who keeps her bothersome golden curls (courtesy of a fairy godmother) chopped short, and works as an apprentice horse farrier. The ending was a little... vague, I suppose - lots of rather odd magic without a great deal of explanation, but hell, why do we need it? McKinley writes so beautifully and evocatively that I'm happy to forgive a lack of magical mechanics.
As you would expect from Robin McKinley, this is a tremendously original take on the fairytale, which starts fairly conventially, and goes into very different places. I loved Rosie, our princess in exile, who keeps her bothersome golden curls (courtesy of a fairy godmother) chopped short, and works as an apprentice horse farrier. The ending was a little... vague, I suppose - lots of rather odd magic without a great deal of explanation, but hell, why do we need it? McKinley writes so beautifully and evocatively that I'm happy to forgive a lack of magical mechanics.