Oh Robin! Again you've left me near in tears!

I just finished reading a most wonderful novel called Spindle's End by the magnificent Robin McKinley! It was so absolutely lovely. It's a re-writing of the "Sleeping Beauty" story. Robin puts a new twist on the tale and brings a near new story out of the mix. I highly suggest this book to any Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose/Aurora enthusist (as I am), princess enthusist, or anyone who enjoys a good novel. Robin's writing style is absolutely supurb, as always. Just be sure not to go in, as I did, thinking that you know the tale because you've read the original or seen the disney movie, you do not. Robin has made this her own, and I love her all the more for it!




As is a kind of... tradition with me, I've chosen quotes I liked a lot as I read it, so here they are. Possible spoilers, but I try not to give much away.

• The merrel also knew its wing had not healed. But I could reach a great hight once more before it failed me... And from there I would fold my wings and plummet to the earth as if a hare or a fawn had caught my eye; but it would be myself I stooped toward. It would be a good flight and a good death. And so I eat their dead things cut up on a pole, dreaming of my last flight.


• This was unexpected she almost put her hand on his arm, almost said to him, What it it? Can I help? I would do anything for you -- when she realised, first, the he would not want her to have seen what she had seen, and second, that what she had barely stopped herself from saying was the truth.


• I do not know. Humans talk. It is the way humans are. Perhaps the talking fills the years; perhaps the years stretch to hold the talking.


• You humans live too long; that's your problem.


• "Those are fairy tales... I am real."
  "Just like me... I'm real, too. I just don't know, real what."


• Who knows what teh rules are in a fairy tale?


• What she was was angry.


• She thought she had made more of an effort climbing window frames than she had realised, and then she thought she must be fighting off some lingering odour of...sleep, and then she thought she was probably frightened...what she was was angry.
• Did you ever know two humans so thick?