Meep!*scream* I squealed so at the end! It was amazing. This book was AMAZING. It was perfect beginning middle and end. McKinley writes it so very differently than the normal tellings of the Sleeping beauty tale, yet she doesn't change much of the basic story line, rather, she writes between the lines.
The end reminded me of a Rapunzel Retelling I read once, called Golden, by Dokey? The end was so very perfect for this story and such a surprise. But I won't give it away.
I suppose I should say what the book is about. But what the book is really, truly about, and the thing that makes it so very amazing will give away too much of the story. So, I'll have to settle for the beginning, a very small and un-proportional picture of the story.
I love the way fairies and magic is portrayed in this book, so sensibly. Fairies are common and not at all considered that special. Magic itself is common and almost a nuisance. You must read the beginning of the book to understand this.
The Royal family are childless for fifteen years, they have a daughter, and blah, blah, blah, just like the Disney movie, except with 21 fairies. But between the lines, we find a young, developing fairy named Katriona. During the giving of the gifts, I found it hard not to laugh at Katriona's reactions to them. Katriona does something that saves the young princess, when the evil fairy, Pernicia, casts her curse. The queen's confidante and friend and fairy tells her to take the princess and hide her away where no one will find her, especially Pernicia.
So Katriona goes back to her home, to her aunt who is also a fairy. They call the child Rosie and she learns to be a horse leech. She's isolated from the rest of the kingdom, but not like in the Disney movie, for she lives in a village. The villagers become part of the story too. The plot thickens as Rosie reaches her 21st birthday. Even then, she doesn't know who she is. In fact, only two others, besides Katriona and Aunt know who Rosie is before Rosie herself knows.
This was an amazing book, based on the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, more than earned my five stars. It was a magical, enchanting and addicting tale. So good that i found that I was more than willing to give up ti9me on the computer, on goodreads to finish it.