supercheesegirl

A really good fairy story. It follows after her other book, Winter Rose, which I honestly can't remember if I've read or not. Although I think I have. But this is worth reading, so it's probably worth it to read the other one first, although not entirely necessary. The ending is a little bland--let's all be friends!--but overall it was a good read.

As a side note, as much as I love Robin McKinley, I have to admit that there are things that other writers do infinitely better. And McKinley's climatic magical moments are always foggy--at the moment when the heroine uses the magic in her sword or defeats the monster or battles the villain in the fairy realm, or whatever, the heroine has no idea what she's doing and seems to survive merely on luck and whatever combination of talismans and magical blood she happens to have. It feels to me like McKinley either doesn't understand herself the rules of the magic she's writing, or else doesn't know how to write it well. And McKillip *does*. In this book, the fairy realm is still magical and confusing, as it should be, but it's made clear why Syl is able to triumph there. I appreciate that a lot.