Sleeping Beauty was never my favorite. Neither was Snow White...I guess I didn't like the girls that were so helplessly asleep that they really did need a prince to rescue them. Even as a child my inner feminist roared, sitting here typing this I just realized why Mulan is my favorite, she doesn't need anyone to rescue her, she rescues the boy.
I do have an exception to my Sleeping Beauty not being my favorite. I am in love with Robin McKinley's "Spindle's End". It is one of my favorite books, that never lets me down. The best retelling of Sleeping Beauty I have read (not that I've read a lot as Sleeping Beauty is not my favorite, if you have a suggestion of one you think better I would love to read it).
Rosie is a kickass little girl. She reminds me a lot of myself and my sister when we were younger and so much of my neice. A beautiful little girl who wants to conquer the world and would never hear of anyone saying she was incapable of anything because she is a girl.
I love that Mckinley doesn't focus the whole book on the fight with Pernicia, that it is only a small portion of the book. The majority of the book focuses on Rosie, the girl she grows up to be. Giving us a full perspective of her personality and how hilariously wrong for the ideal princess she actually is.
My favorite part though is the ending. Mckinley proving that fate does not define us. That while destiny may be a thing that doesn't mean we have no hope of changing it. Rosie doesn't have to be a princess and rule the kingdom. Rosie can be whoever she wants to be. It's her decision. She was born as a princess with 21 names, but as a 21 year old girl that does not define her completely. She is Rosie, the girl that grew up in the middle of nowhere, raised by fairies. Her life was twisted by fate at so young an age not only in her curse but in her arrival to Katriona. Yet in the end she is Rosie.
We all want to believe in fate and destiny. Yet what we failed to realize from all the fairytales we read and watched, listened to, as children. Fate and destiny are not always in your favor. Isn't it better then if fate and destiny are not set in stone? That our experiences in life can define and shape us, and that can alter our destiny.
For me, the best part of the book is knowing that Rosie's fate is not set in stone, Rosie can change her fate. Rosie can change her future. That Rosie is in control, not some evil fairy, not some prince. Rosie.
"Spindle's End" by Robin McKinley
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Spindle_s_End/PvCi9Fud13YC?hl=en&gbpv=0
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