Rating: 
Summary: Nice Book
Review: A very good read, this is one of the few quality authors on the fantasy shelves who as appeal for adult readers or more disciminating readers. Style reminds me of Patricia McPhillips.
Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful retelling of my favorite fairy tale
Review: Once I started this book I couldn't put it down. The book is beautifully written. I must warn those of you tradtionally lovers of fairy tales. This book is not the fairy tale. Yes, it has the same story line, but it is a completely diffrent story. The ending is a total surprise.
Rating:
Summary: A truly wonderful book!
Review: SPINDLES ENDEver been to wonderland? This book is theultimate choice if you want to be in wonderland. It is a splendidstory, a captivating fantasy novel that explores and touches compelling elements that have been left untouched by many other authors. The book is full of lines that are quotable and written in a very simple and dynamic style. It is full of fairies, palaces, people doing magical things that are probably unthinkable for common man. It is more as if you are one of the residents of a fairy land, where fairies are not always erfect, they are absent minded and they forget to do things that are important. Some of the characters of this book are Katriona, Rosie and Peony. The names are very amusing. Everything in this place is simply wonderful, from beautiful fairies to rocks. The rocks in the book have been given the characteristics and emotions of human beings. The author has given a lot of thought to what should be where and then has framed it in a very interactive manner. There are people who talk to animals and interact with all kinds of things. Everything in this book is stirring, the characters are distinct and have vitality. The author's explanation of animals is very attractive and the reader can hardly realize that animals are being talked about, but the animals have not lost their animality. The book is engrossing, spellbinding, entertaining and compelling. It will interest the reader right from the first page and then through the remaining four hundred. The book is a great fun to read. The reader should not expect to put it down until the last page.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not quite 5 stars
Review: I'll admit that I'm a big fan of McKinley's so I read this book predisposed to like it. And I did - it's a wonderful retelling of the fairy tale, unique and imaginative. The prose flows smoothly and the plot moves at a good, but not rushed, pace. The setting described is filled with heady magic and you are drawn into the world almost without your willing it. The two main characters, Katriona and Rosie, were well-drawn, strong, and individual. The animal descriptions are some of the best I've ever read. McKinley's way with words is strongly present here and still as evocative as ever. Why then didn't I give this book 5 stars? I took away a star because of the lack of secondary character development. Narl, a character so important to Rosie, is barely a vague picture in the reader's mind. I expected to get to know him better, and didn't. Same with Aunt, and Barder, and other secondary characters. Don't get me wrong: this doesn't mean that all the secondary characters are flat; in an amazing feat of storytelling, the reader gets to know Peony's aunt through one simple statement (you'll know it when you read it.) But I feel as though the secondary characters suffered from a lack of attention. Nonetheless, this book is still a shining star of the genre. Read it and get lost in the world. It's well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful storytelling, prosy characters
Review: The first half of this book held me in a way that few modern novels do. As always, I am enraptured with McKinley's storytelling abilities. But I do think that we spend so much time getting to know the land, its creatures, and various inanimate objects (or objects that should be inanimate and aren't) that we're left somewhat high and dry when it comes to the characters. I felt the romances and familial relationships were unconvincing--as if they were included simply because they were *supposed* to be there. Narl and Peony, and even Aunt, were plot devices, not characters in their own right. As a result, the last hundred pages or so fell flat for me. I wasn't enough involved with the characters themselves to care much about what was happening to them and whether or not they made it through. Sometimes that results in my rooting for the bad guy--but I wasn't too impressed with Pernicia, either. And she could've been so good, if McKinley had shown us why she was scary instead of telling us repeatedly how scared everyone else was of her. That being said, I think this book flows beautifully and that the elegance of the story and description would make it a worthwhile read even if all of the characters had been wooden. I am eagerly awaiting McKinley's next.
Rating:
Summary: Spindle's End: Robin McKinley
Review: Sleeping Beauty is perhaps the most passive fairy tale heroine. She is threatened, pricks her finger, sleeps for a long time and wakes up in time to get married. A lovely, languid lady whose role in the tale is simply to lie there. Not Rosie, the threatened princess of "Spindle's End". She has far better things to do with her time and an attractive cast of characters to assist her. This is another marvellous effort by McKinley, both enchanting and convincing. The author has that certain rare talent of constructing a world which is truly 'faerie', instead of extruded fantasy product. Compelling, delightful and completely satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: I can only say this..........
Review: This book was excellent, the weaving of fairy tales and reality. If you read this I recommend Clementine by Sophie Masson.
Rating:
Summary: Have we met...?
Review: I intended to like this book from the moment I heard it was coming out. I suppose I'm somewhat dense, since my sister had to realize that the title "Spindle's End" probably had to do with one of our favorite fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty. Now that I've read it, I can't say I'm disappointed, exactly....But for being a new story, it seemed vaguely familiar. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it immensely. The reading was enjoyable, the plot suspenseful. There were funny and sad moments, and the new, somewhat conversational tone of "voice" McKinley uses is quite wonderful. (If you notice, since she's been in England, her expressions and spelling have become decidedly more British.) As always, her plotting and pacing are superb, and her nods to other novels and stories brought a smile to my face. It took me a while to realize why such a satisfying story left me feeling...vaguely DISsatsified; I think it's because it was a little too familiar. All of you reading this should know by now that this is based on Sleeping Beauty, so I won't bore you with plot details. The main character, Rosie, was lovelable and suitably un-princesslike; but then, so was Harry (of "The Blue Sword"), Beauty of "Rose Daughter," and especially Aerin (of "The Hero and the Crown"). I don't object in the least to having a strong female protagonist -- indeed, that's partly why I love McKinley's books. But in this case, I felt always a little distant from Rosie, possibly because we don't get her viewpoint until halfway through the book (but not even at a chapter break, which was one of the occasionally awkward viewpoint shifts). (Incidentally, I also felt that for as long as we had Katriona's viewpoint, we never really got to know her.) I kept being reminded of other heroines; although, to be fair, I've read so much in this genre that it's not McKinley's fault if I make associations with other authors' books (namely Tamora Pierce's "Wild Magic" quartet). The writing was sufficiently different from and like "Rose Daughter" to keep me interested, but the search for answers magical was almost the same, as if these two books were less about the characters than about the magic. Again, it's not McKinley's fault if she wrote about magic and I wanted to read about characters. Fortunately, McKinley never resorted to withholding information from the reader which the viewpoint character knew; and yet, in this case, it felt a little distancing, because when we were thinking with Rosie, we as readers knew that Katriona knew something that Rosie didn't, and we who had just been in Kat's mind wanted to know, too. I agree with the other reviewer who said that her human characters were not as quickly distinguishable as her animal ones, and some characters never got to be a real person. How much can you tell me, for all that we met them, about Aunt, Narl, Peony? At least the romance in the second half of the book was suspenseful and subtle. As for further familiarities, Rosie's first confrontation with Pernicia, in the purple-skied plain, seemed at first to be lifted directly from "Hero" and Aerin's search for Agsdad (? -- my memory fails me), an (unintentional?) allusion which made visualizing this scene more difficult. Yet, overall, McKinley's take on the story was as unique as it could be and still be Sleeping Beauty. What this book really deserves is another, more thorough, reading, and I am sure that the characters will stand out more in my mind. Take this review with a grain of salt, since no writer can please every reader all the time, and before now, I had never been disappointed with McKinley's writing at all. After my second or third read, I will be able to distinguish this country and Rosie's scenes from the others, and I will eventually read books that will remind me of this one. (But that doesn't stop me from wanting another Damar book....) :-)
Rating:
Summary: Imaginatively wonderful fantasy
Review: How Robin McKinley does it, I cannot say, but I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the coherent understable yet high fantasy worlds she creates, especially from common fairy tales. From the first page we are swept into a world of explainable and understable magic, where fairies are necessary and yet quite British - they weed their gardens unlike everyone else and wear trousers (not pants). Fairies have to de-magic pots and keep children with magic until they out grow it. Into this, comes the story of sleeping beauty which we all know but which Ms. McKinley weaves around us with all of her usual tapestry effects - including love of dogs and horses and roses. There are few writers who can weave high fantasy as well as she and this book is one of her best. It is not grim or melancholy but hopeful and renewing, much like her Rose book. My only problem is that now that I have read it, I have had to lend it out it is so wonderful and engagnin and I will have to wait to get it back for a second read Tolkein or Lewis said worlds of fantasy must be internally consistent and yet magic cannot solve all the problems. McKinley does all this.
Rating:
Summary: No one does fairy tales better than McKinley!
Review: If you've read McKinley's Beauty, than you're already familiar with her ability to create the most wonderful characters with her lyrical prose. As in Beauty, the heroine in Spindle's End is a completely drawn character whose courage, intelligence, kindness and humor deviate from the stereotypical pretty princess with nothing to do but be rescued. The story is magical, the supporting characters (especially the wonderful animals) make you wish you knew them yourself and the plot keeps you engrossed throughout the novel. McKinley has an amazing talent to take what is old and make it fresh without abadoning the traditional tale entirely. Unlike Deerskin (which is another fabulous and somewhat misunderstood McKinley piece,) Spindle's End can be enjoyed by all ages. Her writing is colorful and inventive without being wordy or dense. The author's spin on the wake-up kiss and the happily-ever after-ending may not be standard, but they are satisfying. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Parents - read it with your child...you'll both enjoy it (and you can help them out with some of the bigger words.) If you enjoy Jane Yolen or Patricia McKillip, you'll definitely like McKinley.
|
