Rose Daughter
by Robin McKinley

4 out of 5 stars

When her father loses all his money, Beauty and her sisters move with him to remote Rose Cottage, where Beauty learns to cultivate the beautiful roses in the garden. Her father gets lost in the forest and meets the terrifying Beast, who demands that Beauty must come to stay in his palace in payment for a stolen rose. Beauty thinks that if she could just get the Beast’s rose garden to bloom again, the curse on the palace would be broken and she would be free. But the magic is very cunning and tricksy. Time doesn’t flow in the same manner. The space around the palace is distorted, and even the furniture and decorations in the vast rooms keep changing. Beauty must find her own inner magic before she can defeat the evil sorcery that keeps them both prisoners.

I really enjoyed this Beauty and the Beast retelling! In some ways, it stays true to the original fairy tale, and in other ways it is extremely different. For one thing, the Beast doesn’t change back into a human at the end. He chooses to stay a Beast forever. He has paws and fur and eyes that can see in the dark. I thought that was a really weird alternate ending.

There are a lot of odd additions to the story such as hundreds of toads that follow Beauty around. There are unicorns that poop magic manure, and four mischievous hedgehogs that hide in plain sight. We also get to see quite a lot of what the other two sisters are up to while Beauty is imprisoned with the Beast. I enjoyed reading the scenes with all the sisters and seeing how their family dynamic grows.

The writing is absolutely enchanting from start to finish! Robin McKinley has a special talent for weaving a spell around the reader and transporting you to this fascinating world of magic and mystery.

The Beast himself is quiet and sad and sweet. He never loses his temper like some fairy tale retellings. Beauty is also kind of a quiet person; she speaks through her decisive actions. She decides to tackle that dying rose garden, and puts a lot of hard work into it, determined to conquer the evil sorcery around the palace. I really liked their slow-burn romance!

McKinley wrote her first Beauty and the Beast retelling in 1980, “Beauty”, and then wrote a completely different Beauty and the Beast retelling in 1998, “Rose Daughter”. They are both wonderful and very different stories! I heartily recommend you read them both!

This book has been screened for potentially sensitive content on the Screen It First website. https://screenitfirst.com/book/rose-daughter-1764