McKinley, Robin. 1997. Rose Daughter.
Her earliest memory was of waking from the dream. It was also her only clear memory of her mother.
Rose Daughter is Robin McKinley's retelling of her retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Under no circumstances confuse it with her first retelling of Beauty and the Beast; the one simply titled Beauty. I read Beauty a few years ago back in my pre-blogging days. I remember being charmed with it. It was a beautiful story, a beautiful retelling. Though there is an author's note explaining why the author felt the need to go back and tell this tale twice, part of me (okay, all of me) wishes that she hadn't. Beauty is everything Rose Daughter isn't. It's magical. It's beautiful. It works. Rose Daughter is boring, boring, very boring.
What has changed between the two books? Well, an emphasis on gardening and on roses specifically. All this Beauty ever does is garden, garden, talk about gardening, talk about pruning, and get excited about blooms or get frustrated when there are no blooms. There is also an emphasis on cats. Cats, cats, everywhere. This Beauty seems to have a way of entrancing cats and other animals like bats and spiders and hedgehogs. It's just very odd. Odd for a book to have a chapter on her finding a bat and giving it a place to live and talking about bat poop. A lot about bat poop. More than I wanted to know.
Everything that was beautiful and touching and magical about the first book, the first Beauty, is gone and replaced by hundreds of pages of her pruning and talking about fertilizer and making new cuttings.
I suppose there may very well be garden enthusiasts out there who can't get enough of fictional heroines working in the dirt and making pretty flowers bloom. But I'm so not one of them. The book was dreadfully dull. The small details that made me fall in love with Beauty and the Beast were just not here in Rose Daughter.
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Leavitt, Martine. 2006. Keturah and Lord Death.
I've got to admit right up front that I was intrigued by the opening to Keturah and Lord Death: "I was sixteen years old the day I was lost in the forest, sixteen the day I met my death." Our heroine is Keturah Reeve. This is her story, her tale. It reads like a fairy tale. It does. And it's got a certain atmospheric charm and quality to it. I think that it will appeal to some more than others. Or perhaps I should say that it will satisfy some more than others. It had me reading; it kept me hooked. But, for me, this wasn't the ending that I wanted or needed. Perhaps most readers would disagree with me there though.
Keturah has spent her whole life--all sixteen years--dreaming of her true love. Waiting to find her true love, waiting to settle down, waiting to keep house, waiting to have babies of her own to love and tend to. Waiting for THE ONE. When she wanders into the forest, the woods, her hopes seem all but dashed. She becomes lost. She's lost for three days. Without food, without water. She's on the brink of death. And death does come for her. Death, Lord Death, is handsome enough. And she makes a heartfelt appeal. She tells him her heart's desire, she tells him stories, gives him promises. She in fact bargains with Death. He grants her request.
He does not take her then. He gives her a chance. A day. A day to find her true love. A day to be wed to that love. If she succeeds, then he'll not claim her. She'll be safe this time at least from his clutches.
I won't go on beyond this point. But the stories and tales she weaves as she bargains with Lord Death captivate not only him but the reader as well. Can her words save her? Does she even want to be saved?
Some call this a romance. I don't feel comfortable with that label.
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I hope that you're not reading this if you have plans of reading it yourself. Though some might think it predictable enough that the spoiler is silly. Anyway, this is your last chance.
Okay. I disliked her choice. While death in itself is neither absolutely good or absolutely evil. The fact that this young girl thinking herself madly and passionately in love with Death would choose to die and be Death's companion and wife when she could have had a life, a love of her own, her every dream realized is silly. Why choose an early death? Why choose Death over John? Why? This baffles me. And it is this reasoning that makes me be on Team Jacob instead of Team Edward. (For those not in the know this is a Stephenie Meyer reference.)
Gaiman, Neil. 1999. Stardust.
If this book doesn't have you at hello, I don't know that I can help you. There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire. And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it. What a great beginning. It's just so beautiful, so magical. Doesn't it just feel right?
Stardust is set in nineteenth century England in the community of Wall. (1830s and 1840s to be exact.) This community is built by a large (and by large I mean high and long) grey rock wall. There is a gap in the wall, however, a gap that is guarded at all times. Guarded so no one--especially children--can slip through, and guarded so no one can slip in. Beyond the gap, there is a meadow, a beautiful meadow that is forbidden. Forbidden except for one day (and one night) every nine years when the Faerie market comes to the meadow. This is the only time when the two communities (the rather mundane humans and the fantastical, magical faerie world) interact. Our novel opens with us meeting Dunstan Thorn.
I really can't say much more about it. I could, but I won't. It's magical. It's beautiful. It's adventuresome. It's just great storytelling. I loved every moment of it. There were so many things I loved about it that I couldn't begin to describe them in such a way as to do the book and its characters justice. Just trust me. If you haven't met Neil Gaiman, use Stardust as an introduction!!! This isn't my first Gaiman. It's my third. But it is by far my favorite.
McKinley, Robin. 1997. Rose Daughter.
oh no...bat poop? sorry this one was dull.
I've read books like that before to...where I find myself wondering 'what the heck?'
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/
This is the only McKinley I've read, and I liked it! I guess it only bodes well for me when I read Beauty.
Well crap. I have this one a challenge list. Though the cats and bat poop probably wouldn't bother me. The pruning probably would. Maybe I'll have to make a substitution.
Reading is subjective, so Debi you could end up loving this one. I can't really predict that. I loved the other one so much, that this one was just a big disappointment.
It's too bad this one was such a disappointment...I have it on my wishlist, since I loved Beauty and really liked Deerskin. I'm not much into gardening, though..my father is, maybe I should recommend it to him :P
I was planning on reading Rose Daughter and Beauty. I suppose I'll skip Rose Daughter now and just read beauty!
I read Beauty and Rose Daughter around the same time some years ago and I loved Rose Daughter so much more than Beauty! I've read several of McKinley's books and I gotta say Rose Daughter is one of my favourite. Oh, and I don't like gardening. LOL
I think it might be one of those time and place things. I just wasn't in the 'time and place' to enjoy this one much. But it's most likely me. McKinley's other books have always been enjoyable. And chances are this one is just as enjoyable, but not this time around for me.
becky, I have the exact same opinion as you. Loved Beauty, never even managed to finish Rose Daughter because it bored me to death. McKinley is an uneven writer, I either love or hate her books. No in between.
I am looking forward to reading Beauty but won't rush out and get this one if I love it so thanks for the warning. It's interesting she has written two takes on the same tale. Hopefully you will enjoy more of her writing at a later date.
I agree -- Beauty was what really turned me on to the story of Beauty and the Beast. I was excited when Rose Daughter came out and then massively disappointed by it. I liked all of the other McKinley books I've read, just not Rose Daughter.
Ah shame. Though I do find it rather strange that someone would want to write two books based on the same story. I have been wanting to read Spindle's End and Beauty for a while now, and didn't even know this book existed. I'm curious now, but then again, don't really want to waste my time...especially when there's so many other books to read! hmm.
I felt the same way about Rose Daughter. I didn't like it nearly as well as Beauty, and even after the author's explanation, really don't understand why she wrote two books about the same story. It just doesn't make sense to me, especially when the second one wasn't (in my opinion) an improvement upon the first.
I read Beauty and Rose Daughter back to back. I wondered if I wasn't as enchanted with Rose Daughter because I had just read her other version of the same story. I enjoyed the new elements in Rose Daughter, but I agree that it didn't have the magic of Beauty.
It seems to me like McKinley might have a tendancy to latch onto one characteristic/habit/skill from her heroines and then go into it in much more detail than neccessary. Her constant talk about baking and cinnamon rolls in Sunshine really bothered me, and Deerskin focus a lot on dogs (though that I enjoyed). I've read Beauty, but I barely remember it to say if there was a similar situation there.