Nowhere as good as Beauty. The love story between the Beast and Beauty was not developed... the storyline was very repetitive (gardening - supper - dream - little animal - gardening - supper - dream, etc.) to the point of annoying... and there were just too much about roses!
I did like the character of Beauty and her sisters, but I felt like I still didn't know/like the Beast by the end. And what was with the confusing stories about the sorcerer/philosopher/greenwitch?
I recommended Beauty to all my friends, I want to buy a copy of that one for myself because I want to read it again, but I would not recommend Rose Daughter.

Her first retelling of Beauty & the Beast - Beauty - is waaaay better. First off, there is no sorcery junk all through it, like this one, where it becomes the main theme. Second, there is no abundance of unnecessary information, like in this one. Example: it takes a good 4 or 5 pages to describe a corridor Beauty walks down into ... I mean, come on!

Perhaps it’s because I read this immediately after reading Beauty, or perhaps it’s because I read Beauty only because this was marketed as a mature, more developped version of Beauty, perhaps because the impression the marketing left me with was that this was the author having a second go at her successful debut and improving on it…. But the thing is, having read Beauty, I don’t think this is very different or an improvement on her debut. It is of course a matter of taste but I prefer Beauty.

This retelling of Beauty and the Beast perhaps improves on the world building and the magic plot line of the other book, but I found this world-building to be slow, tedious and not generally doing much to enhance or advance the plot in any way. I read this in audio and frequently found myself tuning out of the repetitions of the carpets, the doors, the glass house the walls, the dresses… it was endless how everything was described to such a minutiae that you were convinced the description had significance only to discover it didn’t necessarily. The relationship between Beauty and her sisters and even her father also felt a lot less developped here. This perhaps had more adult themes and felt a little darker but it was also much less joyous to read and a lot more tedious. The ending, while unique and probably what people mean when they talk about the author revisiting this tale with a more mature lens, felt rushed and while I liked it, I didn’t think this “mature perspective” was absolutely necessary and negated the ending to the story.

That said, maybe if I had read this first, I might like this more. Maybe my feelings about this book are because I can compare it quite closely to Beauty since I read them back to back. I think if you’re a fan of fairytale retellings and Beauty and the Beast in particular, or more broadly gothic tales, you’ll probably still really like this. This wasn’t bad by any means and I did finish it, but it didn’t spark much joy.

This is Robin McKinley's second take on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. I'm a lifelong fan of McKinley, but this book was my first indication that her writing style might be headed in a direction that is, shall we say, less accessible to the average reader. I've read Rose Daughter twice, several years apart, but still have extremely mixed emotions about it.

It's slow-paced, it introduces interesting ideas and then simply drops them, the magical part is and always has been confusing to me (for some reason that happens with a fair amount of frequency in Robin McKinley's later books), and reading THAT ENDING was seriously one of the most "The hell??" moments for me ever.  Beauty decides, because of reasons, not to have the Beast turn back into a man. I've just never been able to reconcile myself to Beauty being married to an actual beast. Wait, what? What will their kids look like? Could they even have kids? What will sleeping with him be like? o__O It's a nice thought (that you love someone for who they are) but totally failed the Squickiness Test® for me .

And yet. I enjoyed the characters and relationships between the three sisters (McKinley likes to have the sisters be worthwhile humans; none of that sister-hate here). There are some scenes with animals popping up in Beauty's rooms that are absolutely delightful. McKinley has always written fantastic animal scenes. And fairly frequently I read parts that struck me with their loveliness and reminded me of why I always read McKinley's books, even when I find major parts of them rather frustrating.

McKinley's first take on this fable, Beauty, is a much simpler, straightforward retelling of the tale, and it lacks the elements that make me grit my teeth, always a plus. That one is still my favorite Beauty and the Beast retelling, and probably always will be. But if you don't mind a slower-paced, rather ambiguous fairy tale, you may very well enjoy Rose Daughter.

I guess it says something about my mixed feelings for this book that I've given it a middling rating but I haven't been able to bring myself to get rid of my copy of this book, even though I'm not at all sure I'll ever read it again. On the other hand, it's a nice hardback book that I paid full retail price for, so maybe it's just me being stubborn here.

Hmm… I’m not quite sure how to rate this book. Indeed, some parts were rather good—inventive—but as I finished, I couldn’t help feeling a little unsatisfied.

Though, I first must give McKinley credit for being able to rewrite the story and make it seem fresh and original. It doesn’t read like it’s just another retelling of an old fairytale. I like how she infused magic into this world she created. The magic of gardening… the fragility of it all—the preparations and cultivation, how the blending of nature and nurture with a little attention and care can yield such wondrous beauty was a pleasure to read. Also enjoyed the idea of having sorcerers and witches living in towns, providing charms and spells to help the common folk deal with their everyday troubles, and yet also having them getting into their own scrapes in the process. And did happen to like the idea that the Beast’s castle runs on its own time, different from the outside world.

But, this is also where I believe McKinley made her error. Time runs slower at the castle: A day spent there is equivalent to a month outside its grounds. This only gives Beauty seven days for her to cultivate her feelings and love for the Beast. I can’t help but feel that that’s just not enough time for someone to develop such strong feelings, especially when for Beauty, it did only feel like that short span of time. It would’ve been better if the time factor were switched: one month at the castle equivalent to one day on the outside. This would’ve given more time for Beauty and the Beast to interact. As it stands, her recognition of her sentiments is rather sudden, since her initial feelings towards him were mostly pity and sorrow for his plight.

McKinley hardly includes any interaction between Beauty and the Beast. Beauty meets him for dinner, where they only exchange a few common pleasantries… that’s all. Later, when she discovers the artwork on the roof, he meekly admits he’s the artist, then backs away, never discussing his work, only watches and listens to her observations. This scene could have been beautiful, but it left me ultimately frustrated! McKinley, I felt, took the easy way out, describing their love for each other as more of an internal connection, than one forged by presence and communication, evidenced by the shared dreams, and parallel pain and scars (the pattern of his blood on the floor and her blood on her pillow, and the scars on each other’s hands left by the thorns of the rose). While I did find the idea of this connection interesting… that they’re two halves of the same whole: soulmates, I just wish their characters were more developed and fleshed out—that it was this along with the internal connection that finally brought them together.

Also, I couldn’t really figure out the presence of the squire’s eldest son, Jack. Initially, I thought that he might be a reincarnation of the evil, handsome sorcerer or at least was a host for some fragment of the sorcerer’s spirit, as their characters are similarly described. But at the end, nothing really comes of that connection, and I was left wondering what happened to him after that discussion in Jeweltongue's salon? To what purpose did Jack really serve in the story? I’m not sure how to answer that.

Yet, I did like how the book ended. It sort of makes sense, and reminded me of the final scenes from Jean Cocteau’s La belle et la bête. There, when the Beast makes his transformation from the familiar form to a beautiful and handsome stranger, Beauty seems to have a sorrowful almost uncomfortable look about her… a look portraying the loss of what was familiar to her, the person with whom she fell in love. McKinley seems to take that idea and twists it, giving Beauty the chance to decide how she wants her story to end.

Rose Daughter is an imagining of Beauty and the Beast enriched by lush magical settings. Beauty has two sisters and a widower father in this retelling, and I enjoyed and admired that I could picture them and feel their love and family troubles without being bogged down by too much of the characters' internal thoughts. Emotions are described simply and directly, while words are saved for setting, mood and action. In other words, it's a tale. The combination of direct speaking with a strange, uncontrollable world had a magnetic hold on me. Everyone knows the end of the original, but you will feel that you have entered the unknown and don't know what is happening- and in many ways, in this version, you will be correct.

The second of McKinley's Beauty and the Beast retellings.

B&tB is a problematic story - arguably a Stockholm Syndrome romance - but there are other aspects of the story that also interest me, which are brought to the forefront when reading two retellings of the story by the same author. The similarities and differences, and the message we're supposed to take from the story.


Love as a curse-breaker is the first core of this story, and for that you really have to sell the reasons this girl falls for the monstrous creature that threatened her father's life, and then every night asks her to marry him, but cannot explain why. I think Rose Daughter is weaker on this aspect: Beauty has only seven days to get to know the Beast, and spends only a very little time with him and he barely speaks during the climax of the story. Although his roof painting is a wonderful character moment, a lot of the romance appears to revolve around feeling very sorry for a very sad person. In the Beauty version of the story, we are given more interaction, and a shared interest in their love of reading that makes the romance more convincing.

Family is the second major theme. Beauty in both stories is torn between love of her family and (eventually) her time with the Beast. The two sets of sisters are very different - both very loveable, though who can resist the set that includes Braveheart, roaring about, and getting a job as a stablehand. It's easy to read this dilemma as as straightforward allusion to any marriage, separating a girl from her family to go to her husband's house. That's a separation that happens often enough, without any intervention from curses or Beasts.

One major different between McKinley's two retellings is the conclusion. In both stories we have the classic rich merchant falls on hard times, travels to country, encounter with Beast, sacrifice of Beauty, romance, separation, and reunion bringing the breaking of the curse. But Rose Daughter's curse-breaking leaves the Beast in the form of a Beast, and instead of Beauty and her family being brought to the now unenchanted palace, the Beast moves in to Beauty's cottage. This fits in with the difference in the sisters: wealth and the city were bad for the family at the heart of the tale. Beauty was retiring. Jewel-Tongue's words were viciously edged. Lionheart's courage edged into violence. The two elder sisters weren't nice people, and a plunge into desperate poverty is seen as the making of them. At the conclusion of the story Beauty is directly given a choice between wealth, power and a beautiful husband or a simple village life with a man still trapped in the form of the beast. [That last opens up whole reams of questions about their sex life and species of children and so forth...]

It's a very very very common theme that wealth ruins people, but it never quite rings wholly true for me. 'Wealth' is freedom from drudgery and meaningless labour, is a chance to pursue matters artistic and intellectual - and it is tremendously convenient in Rose Daughter that Jewel-Tongue discovers a love and talent for sewing, and Lionheart becomes less of an ass when her pride has been knocked down - and Beauty's love of roses just happens in this world to be a highly profitable concern, rather than an indulgence in a garden that could be more usefully given over to vegetables.

Of course, perhaps my view of power and wealth has been tempered by growing up without it.

Even ignoring the choice between corrupting power and a "wholesome" country life, Rose Daughter is by far the more scattered of McKinley's two versions of B&tB. It interestingly includes its own "two versions of the same story", with the Squire's son producing a dismissive and misogynistic version of the history of the curse - this whole episode provides the reason for Beauty's urgent return and falls flat, feeling artificial as a means of bringing the plot to crisis point.

There are some particularly delightful parts, however. McKinley builds a fascinating world thoroughly soaked in magic. I loved the frog tide, and really enjoyed Beauty's father bringing his horse into the palace with him for company.

A few years ago I picked up a copy of  Robin McKinley’s  Rose Daughter at a used bookstore for a dollar. I had read a little McKinley way back in the ‘90s and didn’t remember much; I had also reread The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword more recently (still like, 10 or 15 years ago at this point) and had liked them a lot, so I’d bought the copy when it presented itself to me. Then it sat on my shelf for a few years.

I’m on a little bit of a fairy tales kick mentally right now because of Dimension 20 Neverafter, which has some cool things I really like and some things I think are not working, so during the episodes I keep finding myself eyeing the various fairy and folk tales collections and retellings and such on my shelves instead of watching the screen. I’m doing Grimm for my yearlong read, so I didn’t really just want to also read any of my Lang Colored Fairy Books at the same time; hence, I figured it was finally the correct time for Rose Daughter.

Rose Daughter is McKinley’s second retelling of Beauty and the Beast, published 20 years after Beauty. As is unsurprising given the title, this one is mostly about roses. This version of Beauty is an inveterate gardener, always running away from her governesses to muck about in the dirt when the family was wealthy. After their ruin, Beauty, her two sisters, and their ailing father move into the one piece of property left to them, a mysterious, ramshackle house out in the countryside called Rose Cottage.

Roses, in this universe, are pretty rare, and essentially require magic to grow–either sorcery, or better yet, a magical amount of love (the mechanics of this are a little unclear but it works beautifully in-story. A hard magic system it is not). When they arrive, Rose Cottage is surrounded by ill-tempered thorny bushes that Beauty has never seen before, and which turn do turn out to be roses, which only bloom once Beauty arrives to reinvigorate them–the townsfolk say they haven’t bloomed in many years, and only grow when a greenwitch is living there. When Beauty is eventually fated to go live with the Beast in his big creepy magic castle (and it is deliciously creepy), her task there is clearly to rescue the dying rosebushes in the big glasshouse in the middle of the castle grounds. This project eventually exposes all the shenanigans regarding the Beast’s backstory, Rose Cottage’s backstory, Beauty’s mom’s backstory, why the town Rose Cottage is in doesn’t have any resident sorcerers or magicians, and generally rights a multigenerational wrong in a tidy and satisfying way.

One thing that is fun about this version is that Beauty’s two sisters, Lionheart and Jeweltongue, each have their own personalities and character arcs, and the three of them all have very close, warm sisterly relationships despite being very different from each other. This bucks a traditional fairy tale trend that when there are three siblings, only the youngest one whomst is the story’s hero ever is even a decent human being. Instead, in this novel, we get a full family drama of everyone learning coping skills and discovering new talents and generally finding inner strength in the face of serious life challenges and all that good stuff. Even the father, once he begins recovering from the strain of his mental breakdown and the loss of his business, discovers a previously unknown talent for poetry, makes some friends, and eases up a little on his aversion to magic.

Another thing that is fun about this version is, and this is a spoiler: It avoids the “Your reward for loving someone gross is you don’t have to love someone gross!” (Zac Oyama, Adventuring Party) problem. Beauty is given a choice of returning the Beast to his former handsome form and wealth and influence, and instead decides that they’re just going to live their own little life in Rose Cottage and grow roses and that’ll be enough. So that’s nice and pastoral.

The one thing I did not love about this story is that it made me feel bad about my black thumb and general laziness and dislike of gardening. I keep buying cheap potted plants from Market Basket and can’t be arsed to figure out if they’re supposed to be watered on some kind of schedule. I cannot seem to figure out how to deadhead mums. People keep telling me that it’s nice that I have a backyard and I should Do Something nice with it and all I can really say is that if anyone else wants to come garden my backyard for me, I’d be very grateful and pay you in nice cold drinks. If I do anything with the backyard this summer it’ll be “wash the trash cans.” I feel like I’m the only person I know who didn’t become a plant mom over the pandemic. I do, however, love roses, and here in the real world they don’t even require magic to grow (or so I am told), and all the beautiful, lush descriptions of different kinds of roses and the relationship Beauty has with them ended up making me sad that I hate plant care.

That said it is a beautiful, magical, lyrical book, and a great take on Beauty and the Beast. I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for additional cheap McKinley novels that I haven’t read since I was nine.

Originally posted at All the roses in the garden bow and ask her pardon.

A retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story, with an emphasis on roses. This is a comforting McKinley-style tale, in which heroines find comfort in cats, dogs, gardening and sewing, despite their various travails. I enjoyed reading this, but I felt that McKinley shied away from really exploring Beauty's emotions when she is trapped in the castle with the Beast. In other stories, McKinley is not afraid to shy away from complex, difficult situations and heroines who feel despair or horror: I found this one a little too cosy.

This is one of my favorite retellings of this tale.

So many “beauty and the beast” tales focus on changing the “beast,” but this one focuses on learning to see past his exterior to what he really is underneath. There is no brute to human transformation. He does not change the way he acts toward her at all—it is always rather courteous. The one who changes is Beauty. And Beauty herself says she is called this because she was the least of her sisters—who are all rather beautiful—having no greater redeeming quality other than her beauty. She is the one who learns and grows through this tale, and the story is better for it.

Rose Daughter

Robin McKinley books are almost always more a place that you visit then a story that you follow. And in the case of Ride Daughter, this is even more true than in most of her other. The pacing on this one is about 15 kinds of all over the place. It is a beautiful book, full of glorious asides that fill that world with folklore and magic and get you just about nowhere approaching a plot. You won’t feel like you’ve gotten anywhere much, but you will have had an Experience for sure.

Definitely not my favourite of McKinley's works -- I thought I'd like it more than Beauty, and in one sense I do, in that something that bothers me about the ending of Beauty is addressed here and a different sort of ending written. I like the world, the sisters, the domestic stuff that (as usual) McKinley shines with. I liked the castle and Beauty's work there, and the way other little bits of fairytale lore come in (like her experiential seven days spent in the Beast's castle versus seven months for her sisters). It's also notable that the way Beauty and the Beast relate to each other is very similar to in Beauty; the differences are more in a more complicated setup with slightly different inputs producing a slightly different trajectory.

My main complaint the first time I read this was that the greenwitch at the end has far too much explaining to do, in quite a short span of pages, and that remains problematic to me. Some things needed a bit more opening out, foreshadowing, something, to prevent a long stretch of infodump via dialogue.

Still enjoyable, though, and the writing is gorgeous, of course.