Rating: 
Summary: Marvelous
Review: This is a wonderful story, and, even though it has some of the same points as the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, it is completely its own and has a extremely detailed quality. This is about a princess named Briar-Rose who is cursed by an evil fairy on her name-day and has to go into hiding until her twenty-first birthday. Rosie (as she's called by her new guardians, Aunt and Katriona) grows up kind-of tomboyish and can talk to animals. (By the way: the characterization of the animals is really great- a personality is created for each one.) This book is so detailed that I can't even start to begin to tell everything about it- you'll just have to read it for yourself. The only thing that I didn't like was that towards the end it seemed a little unfair for Rosie when she decided to give up her crown, but still everything ended up turning out for good. Final opinion: This is a wonderful book, and I recommend it to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: it was pretty good
Review: This book was pretty good but definitally not one of my favorite Robin McKinley books. If you get bored easily with a book or if you like a book that pulls you in from the begining then i would not recomend this book to you. But if you are intrigued by fantasy and love the retelling of fairy tales then this book is for you
Rating:
Summary: I liked this book. It was ok..
Review: This book has a VERY interesting story. Especially, because I like to read about witches and magical things. This book showed me that long books are still very interesting. Also,that I can pay attention long enough to understand what I am reading,and get into the story. The only problem that I see, is that it is a very slow paced book. To much detail for me. I found that this book was probley the best that I have ever read before. I would suggest this book to my friends and to anyone who likes to read magic storys.
If anyone was to ask me what my favorite part without telling them to much would be, I would have to say when Rosie(the princess)was able to talk to animals. The whole part about, charactors in the story, being able to talk to animals, fascinated me.
I hope you enjoyed my review.
Rating:
Summary: Guess who kisses the sleeping beauty in this novel
Review: "Spindle's End," first published in 2000 is Robin McKinley's novelization of the 'Sleeping Beauty' fairy tale. Inventive characterization is this author's hallmark, and McKinley reimagines and reinvigorates Sleeping Beauty as a princess named Rosie who is cursed to die on her 21st birthday after pricking her finger on a spindle. On her Naming Day, after a very bad fairy named Pernicia delivers the curse, the infant princess is kidnapped by the down-to-earth Katriona (okay, she's a fairy, too, but not in the sense of 'airy fairy') who raises the disguised princess in the distant farming hamlet of Foggy Bottom. Eventually Rosie apprentices herself to a blacksmith, discovers that she can talk to animals, and befriends a girl named Peony. Peony is actually much more of a traditional Sleeping Beauty--meek, beautiful, skilled in the feminine arts, and somewhat passive. Rosie is an active, callused horse doctor who ultimately takes on the traditional prince's role, with the help of her friends Katriona, the blacksmith, and some very remarkable animals. Have no fear, "Spindle's End" is not a feminist rant. Men get some very nice walk-on roles and the only really evil personage is Pernicia who hovers threateningly throughout the novel: "Perhaps I shall even come to her, in secret, tonight...and press her tiny soft hand against the spindle end..." McKinley has created a densely magicked universe, shading over into cutesy only occasionally. Unfortunately most of the shading was in the first couple of chapters and I almost got clogged by the treacle and stopped reading. I was glad I didn't because this is a marvelous, non-wimpy reworking of the usual 'beautiful woman can do nothing for herself but wait passively for handsome prince' fairy tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Spindle's End
Review: Spindle's End is basically a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, only the beauty isn't beautiful and she doesn't get her finger pricked. I didn't enjoy this book very much. I absolutely LOVED the Hero and the Crown and the Blue Sword, but this was just TOO BORING! Some of the stuff that happened in the story made absolutely no sense at all. Why were Peony and Rosie friends is they were complete opposites and Rosie was determined to hate her? Just because Peony says she has log eyelashes, they are suddenly friends? And why does Rosie fall in love with Narl. He's like, 25 year older than her. Maybe 10 or 15 year way okay back then, but being 20 year older than the other person is too_*ugh*_! An even the ending, the part in books that you alway have to keep reading was SO INCREDIBLY BORING! I think Robin McKinley had too much detail in that part. If is skipped ahead a few pages and started to read again, the author would still be describing the same thing she was like three pages ago. I don't recommend this, don't read it, don't buy it!
Rating: 
Summary: Great. But not so great.
Review: And that's to put it bluntly. My cousin recommended this book to me, and said it was beyond wonderful. So she let me borrow her copy and I finished it in just about a day. The beginning drags on a bit...alright, maybe not a bit, but it still drags on and on about Dja vines, and pages about teakettles (which was amusing, and funny at points). Afterward, when it gets on about the actual plot, it gets quite interesting. Reading about Rosie growing up and going through her childhood is a delight. But when you finish just a bit over half the book, you wish she'd grow up already and get over with the prince-thing and all. The end was...erm, surprising, and disappointing. It makes you want to scream, "OF ALL PEOPLE?!?" Well, at least it did that to me. I admit, this book wasn't exactly the best. But this was the first one I've read by McKinley, and I hope to read Rose Daughter and The Blue Sword next. And maybe you'll find Spindle's End much better than I did. And I hope, I dearly hope, that it won't disappoint you as much as it did me.
Rating:
Summary: Increases your page turning technique...
Review: ..and I'm not joking. Robin McKinley retells the story of Sleeping Beauty with wonderful detail and preciseness. Every time you leave off and mark the page, you have this inner longing to come back and keep reading. Seeing Rosie grow up and face the challenges that await are excellent additions to a simmering plot.
Rating:
Summary: Run-around disappointment
Review: Frankly, i'm sorry to say I was rather disappointed with this book, especially considering my love for this genre. Bad ending aside, parts of this book gave me a headache. McKinley apparently couldn't differentiate between a sentence and a paragraph, so some passages took a second or third reading to make sense of. The format for this book could have been a lot better. The plot was also slightly lacking. If you take in consideration her other books, such as Beauty, or the Blue Sword, Spindle's End just didn't cut it.
Rating:
Summary: Spindle's End
Review: This book is a retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty which actually sticks fairly close to the original story, at least as far as setting goes. Rather than updating it, the author has chosen to retell it in a fairy-tale style with more depth and substance. I found this book difficult and almost boring to read in parts, but then there were brilliant patches where I couldn't put it down. I thought the beginning, when the magical country was described in such detail, was a bit of a mistake, although it was interesting. I would have preferred the characters to be introduced first and then the book to have moved onto a more detailed description of the scenery. I also didn't like that we had to see so much of the book from Katriona's point of view; I found her a boring and flat character and it was a relief to move onto Rosie. Even though Rosie is the slightly stereotypical tomboy princess, I still liked her character and thought it was one of the strong points of this book. The characters around her are less well drawn - I would have liked to know more about Narl, and Peony annoyed me. By this point I'm wondering myself why I gave this book four stars - but it really is a wonderful read, most of the time, despite these shortcomings. My one big complaint which I can't overlook must be the ending. I found the final confrontation very tedious and wished it hadn't taken place it such an unreal setting. It jarred with the rest of the book. The author's take on the kiss is interesting and it was good to have a few twists near the end. However, I don't think the story should have been resolved in the way it was - it seemed too easy after all the run up. Peony is not the princess, whatever anyone says.
I could have done without a lot of the animal stuff as well - as one reviewer said before, it reminded me far too much of Daine in Tamora Pierce's Immortals Quartet. I liked the idea of this being the gift that could save Rosie, however - another original twist. Overall, this was beautifully written and had some really riveting parts, but was not without its boring patches and faults. It could have been slightly less predictable - near the end, one of the characters says 'But it is not a story, with the happy ending already written and waiting for us to turn the pages.' Yet it is, isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: Hmm...
Review: As I've said, I love all of Robin McKinley's books, but most of them aren't perfect, although they ARE wonderful. This book is no exception. It is another retelling (she's very good at retellings), but this is of the classic story of Sleeping Beauty. It explains the plight that the poor princess was put in, with some humor, friendship, and lots of touching love. The princess (I forget her name again because I own the book but am too lazy to get up and get it now, hehe) was swept away by a fairy after the princess was cursed by a jealous and mean fairy. The story weaves through the life of the Princess (her name MAY be Briar Rose like in the cartoon, haha) along with her loving savior and her family. This story really made me smile, and I hope that RM will continue to produce and "spin" (what a loser I can be sometimes, lol) such great tales, or retellings,and I hope that more people will discover the beauty of her writings.
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