Spindle's End

By Robin McKinley

An exceptional retelling of The Sleeping Beauty which takes the reader into a magical world filled with modern characters, encountering adventure, love and loss. Rosie is very, very ordinary. No-one, not even an extremely powerful and evil fairy who is out for the princess's blood, would give Rosie a second glance. But then, even Rosie doesn't know the secret of her own birth...and she cannot be hidden forever as her twenty-first birthday approaches. The curse placed on her at her christening will hunt her down through the years, gathering strength, and at some point a princess must become a queen, even if she would rather just stay ordinary-

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446498606

Robin McKinley

Robin McKinley has won various awards and citations for her writing, including the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown, a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for Sunshine. Her other books include the New York Times bestseller Spindle’s End; two novel-length retellings of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and Rose Daughter; Deerskin, another novel-length fairy-tale retelling, of Charles Perrault’s Donkeyskin; and a retelling of the Robin Hood legend, The Outlaws of Sherwood. She lives with her husband, the English writer Peter Dickinson; three dogs (two hellhounds and one hell terror); an 1897 Steinway upright; and far too many rosebushes.

Reviews for Spindle's End

[jean_sexton-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really, really enjoy reading Robin McKinley's books. And I enjoy retellings of fairy tales. It should be no surprise that I loved this book.

Sleeping Beauty as a story has appealed less to me as I grew up. The poor princess, victim of a wicked fairy's curse, ends up marrying the prince who just happens to be the one to kiss her. In this story, Rosie is no victim. She grows up as a fairly normal child who happens to have gifts that suit her lifestyle. As in any fairy tale, the curse finally catches up to her, but she doesn't play the role of a victim.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy descriptive fiction.

[cgalvin-774225 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The joys of everyday life wrapped into an adventure or three.

[linyarai · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A great read by one of my favorite authors.

[sandyamcpherson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You might think you know the tale of 'Sleeping Beauty' but guess again! This is a marvellous rewrite of an old legend. McKinley captures the essence of the characters beautifully.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

On and on and on with the description of the piddling details of the rules of magic (but, ironically, I still have questions about them). Not much actual plot until the last, erm, 1/4 (less?) of the book. And the characters were more trope, more iconographic, than real. But at least spiders are good, not creepy, so maybe I should give it an extra star for that bit of scientific accuracy and originality? Nah. We're going with 2.5 stars and done.

[rosa.mill · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this version of Sleeping Beauty, Rosie grows up living with two fairies in the Gig and their extended family. She talks to animals and works at the blacksmiths as a type of horse whisperer (my word not theirs). She is a strong character and extremely tough. With the help of her animal friends and the blacksmith she defeats the evil fairy and leads a happy life. The group dynamics of this book are very interesting and people will enjoy meeting a wide variety of characters and watching the princess grow up into a strong young woman, and everyone getting their happily ever after in unexpected ways.

[ferocity-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'd read this before but forgotten it. It was mostly good, but I burned out by the end. I really do love McKinley's fairy tales -- whether they're re-tellings or one's she's created on her own. I need to go back and read Sunshine again.

[pwaites_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Spindle’s End is a lusciously described retelling of Sleeping Beauty by Robin McKinley, an author who has always made a point of writing Girls Who Do Things. Obviously, in her version of Sleeping Beauty, the princess is going to do more than sleep the entire story.

And she does. There’s very little of the “sleeping” in her, or “beauty” or “princess” either, really. In an effort to protect her from the evil fairy who cursed her to die when she touched a spindle, Rosie’s been raised to believe that she’s just an ordinary peasant girl. Of course, Rosie’s being raised by two fairies, so “ordinary” might not be the right word.

While Rosie may have been blessed with many typical princess attributes, such as long golden curls, perfect dance steps and the like, she finds ways to ignore or foil them. Rosie’s more interested in her animal friends (the gift to speak to animals being the most useful she received) and running around in the woods. But as her fateful birthday grows nearer, Rosie begins to realize that her life is tied up with that of the kingdom’s.

This book is very much character driven and largely focuses on Rosie growing up. While I did enjoy Rosie and some of the other characters, it didn’t feel like much happened. There wasn’t even a whole lot of dialog or conflict between characters.

The writing is also rambling in places, as it is with a number of McKinley’s first person narrated books. However, I feel that the writing style didn’t work as well for Spindle’s End – instead of being the voice and mind of a narrator, it just felt sporadic and info dumpy in places. Also, the POV shifted constantly throughout the book and wasn’t divided in any clear fashion.

I probably wouldn’t recommend this one unless you’re already a fan of fairy tale retellings or Robin McKinley – or if you want to see a more active princess at the heart of the story. For everyone else, I’d suggest picking up one of McKinley’s other books first. The Hero and the Crown isn’t a direct retelling but does have a feel of a fairy tale, and the writing is much smoother.

[ncgraham_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Robin McKinley's best works, especially those drawn from traditional folklore, are so cozy, like a cup of tea on a rainy day. That is what I like best about Spindle's End, her take on "Sleeping Beauty": the simple warm feeling of it, rather than any particular characterization or twist of the plot. It's hard to completely dislike a novel that opens by declaring that "The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust." It's equally as hard not to fall in love with the Gig, the especially magical corner of the kingdom where most of the story is set.

It's just a shame that McKinley wasn't able to create a more enthralling story to take place in this world. When I was a preteen, it took me two tries to get through Spindle's End, and though I found it to be smoother sailing as an adult, I still cannot say I love it. Part One is quite good, with provincial fairy Katriona attending the new baby princess's name day only to be saddled with the task of spiriting the child away after she is cursed in her cradle by the evil Pernicia. Katriona is to my mind the most vivid character in the book, and it's a shame she fades into the background after her flight back to the Gig. The rest of the book sort of plods along—it's about fifty pages too long, I'd say—and even the climax is more vague than it is exciting.

A good comfort read that I'll keep on my shelves and perhaps reach for again in another ten or fifteen years, but certainly not up to the standards of Beauty or the Damar books.

[satyridae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hypnotic, tangled and often impenetrable narrative. The briar roses that grow up around the sleepers in this oddly compelling retelling of the Sleeping Beauty legend are a good metaphor for how McKinley's words coil around each other in paths untraceable by me. There are lovely, memorable passages which exist almost independent of the story, one of which I think I'll keep forever.

"What you describe is how it happens to everyone: magic does slide through you, and disappear, and come back later looking like something else. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but where your magic lives will always be a great dark space with scraps you fumble for. You must learn to sniff them out in the dark."


At the end I'm left with the feeling of having read a lovely fairy tale, most of which was far beyond my ken.

[raschneid_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I feel bad giving this book so few stars. But I honestly can't say that I enjoyed it. I actually skipped parts, and the darn thing was only 300 or so pages long.

McKinley is a good writer; she produces gorgeous and very funny prose, she's a master worldbuilder, and she creates believable characters and complex plots. I would have happily read the short story version of this novel. But I got bored at about the hundred page mark.

The reason I got bored is that this novel began with Rosie's birth (as it had to) and ended with the events surrounding her twenty-first birthday (as it had to). In the meantime, we had to watch Rosie grow up. And it was BORING.

It was boring, first of all, because of the style. McKinley *tells* the story rather than shows it, especially in the middle, and she is such a lovely writer that it almost works. Except that all of her pretty words actually form a barrier between us and the characters. Rosie and the others are interesting enough that we really could have fallen in love with them and rooted for them at the end. However, we're told what Rosie is like rather than witnessing what she's like, and as a result reading about her is not very compelling. In addition, whenever McKinley tries to create an emotional response with dramatic language, the subtle beauty of the words falls flat because it comes out of nowhere; all of a sudden this character who we don't really know all that well is having a poetical life-changing moment, and I'm left wondering, why? And so what?

Conclusion: Even writers who are super brilliant aren't allowed to break the "show don't tell" rule in long form fiction unless the story demands it. Not the story they think they're telling, the story that they're actually telling.

The other problem was that, oh yeah, NOTHING HAPPENED. It was about the characters and not the plot, and these characters were not dynamic enough to carry the story. Of course good characters don't have to be dynamic. In Coraline, the titular character is not, when you stop to think about it, a super dynamic or complex character, but she's believable and likable and as a result we're rooting for her every moment. The difference is that Coraline is always doing something, always in danger. By giving us a long middle in which there's only occasional danger, McKinley put the onus of interest on her characters, and thus fails.

I also have found that I generally dislike stories with friendly animal helpers. Did she really expect us to remember all of the names of the different animals? But I can accept that this might just be my problem.

I know a lot of people really like Spindle's End, and I do think it had a lot to like (how 'bout that worldbuilding)? I also know that it's often shelved as a children's or YA book (although I got it from the adult's section), so faulting it for a lack of complexity is perhaps not fair. But there are so many children's books that are super enjoyable for adults to read that I'm not going to give this one a pass on that account.

Not writing off McKinley entirely - I liked Beauty when I read it in high school! But I think I'll skip ahead a hundred pages in the next thing I read by her, to make sure that abrupt boredom does not ensue.

[amaraduende · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For as long as I can remember I've said Sleeping Beauty is my favorite fairy tale, and here's the reason why. I can't think of SB without thinking of this book, which is in fact my favorite book of all time. I've read this so many times and each time it's beautiful, magical, haunting, uplifting, and peaceful and romantic.

The every-day realism McKinley mixes with magic is a combination that I love. The characters here (and what wonderful characters they are) are really the heart of the story, and the fact that magic is a part of their world is just a part of the book. The centrality of women and their bravery in almost all of McKinley's books is something I love, but this book especially takes the cake.

[pamelamanasco · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a retelling of the "Sleeping Beauty" fairytale, this book is interesting--it takes the source material and twists it and transforms it, mostly in a wonderful way. The characters were lively and likable. But there was a tone here that bugged me; it was like the book tried to be witty at the reader's expense, and the bits that were obviously supposed to be humorous and witty were just that: obvious. For me, the tone often fell flat. And there were so many unanswered questions, at least for me. I have huge problems with the antagonist's motivation (where was it?) and with much of the ending, in general. This is, unfortunately, a thing that has begun to bug me with this writer's books--by no means do I believe that she has to wrap up every single thread in her endings, but I think that sometimes, she sacrifices reader satisfaction for brevity. I dearly love several of McKinley's books (The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, and Sunshine chief among them), but for me, Spindle's End was not a fun read.

[librisissimo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another in the seemingly endless mass of re-told fairy tales, once again about the Sleeping Beauty. Readable but not outstanding.

[carlyrose · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I nearly stopped reading this book several times. Too much overly verbose description, not enough character development and action. I loved McKinley's Beauty, but was sorely disappointed in this book.

[ladycato · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In this retelling of Sleeping Beauty, McKinley has re-imagined a familiar world and provided her own deft twists. Katriona is but a girl when she is selected to be her village's representative at the long-awaited naming ceremony for the new princess. The ceremony goes awry when a wicked fairy arrives, cursing the baby princess to death by her 21st birthday. In a whirlwind of events, Katriona is the one who grabs the baby and makes a run for safety. With the help of animals along the long journey, she and the infant survive. In her remote village, she and her Aunt raise the princess as a very normal sort of girl named Rosie... a girl who happens to have a knack for talking with animals. The threat of attack is always looming, and as her 21st birthday draws near, a confrontation is inevitable.

I really wanted to love this book. I love Sleeping Beauty. I have fond memories of McKinley's books from when I was a preteen. Even though the magic of the world comes across well, this is a book where almost nothing happens until the end. The first 200 pages are almost all filler and tales of the princess as she grows up. At the end when magic is in full force, things became confusing, especially as a wide cast of animals took over. As much as I liked the setting and the twists in a familiar tale, the book was incredibly uneven for me and I had to force myself to finish.

[mickyfine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In a country where magic collects as dust on every surface and having a fairy on hand is always helpful, the king and queen announce the long awaited birth of their first child, a girl. Inviting one person from every village in the country to the name-day and giving their daughter twenty-one fairy godparents, seems like a good plan. Katriona, a fairy in training, is selected as the representative for her small village in the Gig and gets far more than she bargains for when the evil fairy, Pernicia, curses the baby princess with death by pricking her hand on a spindle and Katriona ends up abducting the princess to keep her safe. Raised by two fairies, Rosie has no notion that she is the cursed princess, but dark magic is persistent and as Rosie's twenty-first birthday approaches the curse looms with a threat that could tear the entire country apart.

A rich retelling of Sleeping Beauty, Robin McKinley creates a small group of characters that bring a simple tale to life. The world she creates is delightful, with the tendency for magic to crop up anywhere and fairies who are just like any other trades person. What I particularly enjoy is that Rosie is far from the image of perfection one would expect of a princess, especially one given gifts by fairies, and she is instead flawed and real. The only small issue I had was that there would occasionally be leaps in the plot or the introduction of a character without any real notice and I would attempt to spend time attempting to figure out if I'd missed something. Otherwise, a beautiful fairy retelling with a happy ending that will leave you smiling after you turn the last page.

[thelostentwife · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It wasn’t until I was about 1/3rd of the way into Spindle’s End that I realized what this book was doing – it’s filled with narrative, like.. overly so. That’s not really a bad thing, per se, but still.. there just wasn’t a whole lot of talking.

In Spindle’s End, McKinley tells the story of Briar-Rose (Sleeping Beauty for those of you not in the “know”). As a baby, Briar-Rose is cursed by an evil fairy to prick her finger before her 21st birthday and die.. but fate steps in and, in the arms of a fairy-apprentice, Briar-Rose is spirited away.

I really did enjoy this story. It wasn’t fall down amazing, or filled with fantastic prose or anything.. but it was a story that told a sweet tale of sacrifice, of love and was a clear good vs. evil type of battle. I loved that women weren’t treated as objects to be bandied about and that Rosie has to stand up for herself and fight.

If you enjoy fairy tale re-tellings, like I do, then this is one to put on the list. Like McKinley’s Beauty, it doesn’t stray too far from the main fairy tale, but it does stray enough to give Rosie some backbone, which was sorely needed.

[thelorelei_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit, Robin McKinley's retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty was a book I had trouble making sense of as a child. It just didn't fit with the way I felt the story should go. Now that I am an adult, however, I finally appreciate McKinley's deft handling of possibly the most passive princess in all of fairy tale literature. Spindle's End sets this familiar story in a land steeped with magic--so steeped, in fact, that the folk who live there must descale their teapots of magic encrustation so that it will continue to pour tea, and not, say, spiders. Magic is everywhere, and the people deal with it on a daily basis. Either they are fairies and they handle the odd magics themselves, or they hire a fairy to keep things from running amok. Being an avid reader of fantasy novels, I have read many, many books dealing with magic, and this book handles it in a wonderfully logical way. In Spindle's End, magic is a practical, mundane part of life. While the novel's characters recognize it's power, they also are completely accustomed to its effects. This interesting setting informs the tone of the whole story. Rather than talking further about the plot, I will just say that this novel is worth reading merely for the unique experience of this magically drenched setting full of its utterly practical people, of whom our cursed princess is one.

[jbd1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very atmospheric retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story, set in a land where magic holds sway. Light and entertaining, but also nicely written. A good fast read, with enjoyable characters and enough twists to keep things interesting.

[321gemstar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love this book. I'm a fairy tale romantic sometimes, and that makes retold fairy tales one of my favorite. The first that I fell in love with - Ella Enchanted - I've reread more than eight times now. Sadly, I couldn't finish this book the third time through. Though I didn't remember it at first - I was slightly worried that it was one of Ms. McKinley's short story compilations- once I started it, I remembered it all. Don't get me wrong - it's a fabulous book. I just can't read it three times. I got almost to the end, but wasn't able to finish the last chapter or two. It's lame that I can’t finish- believe me, I know.

Despite this sad statistic, this book really is lovely and I really wanted to reread it. The pages - like this sleeping beauty's kingdom - are steeped in magic. There's so much magic in that country that it falls like dust, and causes things to change from what they really are. Fairies are not mystical or wispy like dandelion seeds, but sturdy, homegrown, vegetables. That might seem like a weird simile, but I think it gets my point across – they’re normal and homely.

Normally my favorite character is the main one, but this story sort of has two main characters (it switches perspectives half way through). My favorite is not the princess with 21 names, but rather Katriona, her accidental 21st godmother and care taker. Katriona is only sixteen or so years older than the princess, whom they call "Rosie". It might be because I'm jealous of her magical powers, or the fact that she's been in love with the same person since she was 12. I'm not sure which. It might be how strong she was to protect Rosie, and how wonderful a person she is in general. In comparison with the wild Rosie, she's a lot more gentle and motherly, which I like. She's just... better, for lack of a more creative word.

While the villain, and evil fairy is not humanized in the least, many other things - like the lack of sharp spindles - are made clever. Katriona doesn't hide Rosie in the forest, but rather disguises her in a normal town. As Rosie grows, very few of her christening gifts show themselves because of Rosie's natural disposition and stubbornness. Rosie, ever the odd one, was given the gift to speak to animals by Katriona, and uses it in an everyday manner. A much more daring and dangerous escape plan is used to escape the Rosie's planned death.

This book enchanted me as Robin McKinley's other fairy tales have done, and is a marvelous bedtime read.

[yhaduong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite Robin McKinley books, I return to this one time and time again. It's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty but in a such an unusual manner that it's almost barely the original story. It's a beautiful depiction of a land filled with small and then not so small magics, hidden identities and what it means to be ordinary.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Spindle's End, a fantasy novel by Robin McKinley is a reworking of the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. I fully expected to love this book and be totally carried away to another world, but, unfortunately, I found the book long-winded and rather dull. The general flow of the book was disrupted time and time again by pages of description and explanations so wordy that the story got lost.

I was disappointed as I think there really was an excellent story buried in this book. Her characters were interesting and just different enough to capture your interest. The story was intriguing, but it was so just so hard to get at.

I think this author is a true story-teller and I fully intend to try further books by her. I will keep my fingers crossed that she eventually lets the story simply flow and doesn’t bog it down with excessive details.

[tjsjohanna_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first time I read "Spindle's End" I was so interested in how the story was different from the original fairy tale. This time, I was struck by the emotion in the book. One of Robin McKinley's talents is making fairy tales real and I think she does this by bringing emotion to the forefront. Yes, Katriona saves the princess' life - but it changes her whole life and there is loss as well as gain. The ending particularly explores that loss and gain for many of the main characters. Another theme this book explores is the idea of identity - who someone is and what makes them that person and not another. As usual, the prose is rich and lovely.

[bluesalamanders · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Another wonderful fairy tale adaptation, this time of Sleeping Beauty. I love this book - I probably liked fairy tales when I was a kid, but now the kind of story where the princess sits (or lays, as the case may be) around waiting for the prince to rescue her don't appeal to me. This is a much more active story, with the princess taking part in her own defense. The animal characters are fantastic - the different personalities they have are so appropriate to the species. And as always with McKinley's books, the description is incredible, with so much detail that the world seems to come alive.

[smitten1054 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Too wordy there at the end, so not entirely a pleasant read. The same kind of issues i remember having with McKinley in jr high school. I guess I haven't matured. McKinley's Sunshine is my favorite of all I've read of her's.

[samantha71020 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Spindle's End is the retelling of the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. For those of you who don't know the story of Sleeping Beauty begins when the princess is born and an evil fairy puts a curse on her saying that she will prick her finger on a spindle's end and die on her birthday. That's the gist of the story in a nutshell :) But what makes this book different is that the author puts her own spin on the story and on the princess herself. Robin McKinley adds many different elements of fantasy to the story to make the book unique and different from the classic Disney version that most of us have seen.


My opinion on this one goes a bit of both ways. The best way to put it is that I liked Spindle's End but I didn't love it. I liked the way that Rosie (the princess) is portrayed and I really liked all of the characters in the story. We really got to know the characters throughout the book and I couldn't help but grow attached to them as the story went on. I was constantly wondering what was going to happen next especially since I knew the way that they story was "supposed" to go. Happily, the author was constantly putting her own spin on things which made the ending a suprise and different than what I expected. Now on the flip side, this book dragged for me at different points. I'm not sure if I got bogged down in all of the details or what but at times it just felt to be a bit too much. I think the author could have cut out some of the details relating to fairies and magic and the story would have been just as good. But that's my opinion and others might disagree.


All in all, Spindle's End was an interesting retelling of Sleeping Beauty and I will be open to reading more books by this author especially since I see that she has won some awards for other things that she has written. But I recommend it with a caution as there are some slow parts that cut down on my enjoyment of the novel.

[alliebeth927 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I love Robin McKinley, and normally can devour one of her books in a day, but I had a hard time losing myself in Spindle's End. The pace seemed jolting and only the last several chapters left me with that 'can't put it down' feeling. If you're looking for a great fairytale, I'd suggest Beauty with much more enthusiasm.

[silveredblue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book has a lovely feeling. McKinely is a master of atmosphere, and in this book it truely shows. The symbolic use of the colors purple and black in the naming scene and all the other little details are stunning. The plot is beautiful, though I had to read it twice to appreiciate all the nuances.

[kochanneo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Somebody bought me this book many years ago, but it was only yesterday that I actually bothered to pick it up and read it, (It took me from 11pm till 2am) a better description on the back would have helped it along somewhat. But despite me being older than the target audience I still found it interesting, if slightly confusing at the end.

A retelling of the classic Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty story, this book follows the life of a girl growing up in a marshy backwater, raised by her two aunts, apprenticed to the blacksmith and uninterested in makeup or dresses, she's the last person she expects to be outted as a princess. The ending was interesting but I agree with another reviewer, what would have happened if the friend hadn't been there to help? It would have made for a very different book.

I really liked the portrayal of magic this book presented, as a heavy dust that settles in corners and has to be swept away and scraped out the kettle once a week. Visible but not really usable by everyone, and even then not even used by all that can.

The prince character seemed a bit well placed. Nobody else could find her, but he did? Simply because he swore an oath to marry her when he was 10? I'm sure every knight at the castle swore an oath to protect her the day she was born and countless boys in the local towns and villages made marriage oaths over the years, yet none of them turned up and they probably meant it just as much, if not more than he did.

Finally, there's a part of the climatic battle at the end that's a little confusing and I'd have to read again more carefully to properly understand, but the book sorts itself out so I still give it four stars and reccomend it to any girl of around ten or above who enjoys reading fantasy books. At an age double that, it still kept me entertained for an evening.