I don't think I've reread this one since high school. Revisiting it was intense, because it's a very intense book: trauma and recovery and myth and pain, but it's all rendered so beautifully.

Nobody else writes fairytales the way McKinley writes fairytales. Her worlds are so utterly the Fairyland of fairy tales, and yet they don't seem generic in the way that many do. Her prose is so exquisitely suited to fairytale retellings, and the way she draws a scene is so delicious.

I really don't think that this book would be published as a YA novel today, both because of its subject matter (the cesspit that is YA Twitter would freak the hell out) and because McKinley's prose and style is too intricate and...dense, in a good way. How can she write so clearly and straightforwardly and yet also feel dense? I don't know, but I love it. I'd forgotten how long and twisty her sentences can be; I was aware that I love long and twisty sentences, but I don't think I realized till this reread of this particular book just how much that must be the result of imprinting on McKinley's prose so much as a kid. (Does that mean I can thank McKinley for my love of Faulkner? What a funny thought!)

There's always a worry when you reread an author you loved as a kid that her works won't hold up now that you're an adult. It's such a relief to know that McKinley still won't let me down.

(Also I gasped out loud when I saw the reference to Aerin. I'd forgotten that was there!)

(Also also: McKinley pretty much only knows how to write one climactic scene, but I can forgive her for that because it's always pretty cathartic. She certainly has her leitmotifs, and if you don't like one of her books, you probably won't like any of them; fortunately for me, I share many of her hangups and the ones I don't share, I can go along with.)