radio-appears reviewed Beauty by Robin McKinley
Enjoyable, but not very deep
After Sunshine, I'm returning to the McKinley writing I enjoy - her fairy tale re-tellings.
While I missed the darkness of Deerskin, it's a perfectly well done version of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. There's a bit of coming of age, there's a bit of romance. I liked that all three sisters had a really good relationship. It was enjoyable and there isn't much more to say about it. That may be because of the source material, of course. Beauty and Beast was written by Barbot de Villeneuve to educate young French noblewomen on virtue (as far as I know), while Deerskin comes from the oral tradition of German mothers telling terrifying tales so their children would stay out of the woods. And even within that category it is one of the Grimms' more horrifying fairytales. Disney isn't going to adapt that one, you can be sure. …
After Sunshine, I'm returning to the McKinley writing I enjoy - her fairy tale re-tellings.
While I missed the darkness of Deerskin, it's a perfectly well done version of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. There's a bit of coming of age, there's a bit of romance. I liked that all three sisters had a really good relationship. It was enjoyable and there isn't much more to say about it. That may be because of the source material, of course. Beauty and Beast was written by Barbot de Villeneuve to educate young French noblewomen on virtue (as far as I know), while Deerskin comes from the oral tradition of German mothers telling terrifying tales so their children would stay out of the woods. And even within that category it is one of the Grimms' more horrifying fairytales. Disney isn't going to adapt that one, you can be sure. (I wonder if Beauty being a bookish girl, and the giant library inspired the Disney version, or if this was already a thing in the original story. I can't quite remember.)
McKinley also wrote another book based on this fairytale - Rose Daughter - which I'm learning from reviews is a little bit more complex. I loved reading Angela Carter's different versions of this tale in her story collection, and comparing them, so I'm super curious about that.
