Flawed but ultimately worthwhile Sleeping Beauty retelling 
 For the first half of Spindle's End, I was completely enraptured. I loved the setting Robin McKinley had created where magic is a tangible presence, how she took the time to get us emotionally attached to characters who were glossed over or only broadly sketched in the original fairy tale, and how she made the princess into her own person independent from the curse and the fairies' gifts. 
 The second half, alas, is where the book partially falters. McKinley's writing style tends towards the dreamlike and richly-detailed which works wonderfully for world-building and atmosphere, but not as well when trying to set up a suspenseful, faster-paced climax that left me feeling more confused than enthralled by how obtusely its events were described and how out-of-left-field the revelations of a certain character's backstory felt. 
 In addition, I felt that the climax and the ending were somewhat at odds with the tone and themes of the first half. The first 200 pages do such a great job at highlighting the surprising ordinariness of a family unit composed of two fairies and a princess who can talk to animals and emphasizing how said ordinariness is wondrous and delightful in its own way, that the eventual shift from relative slice-of-life to less character-driven curse escape attempts and a villain who isn't nearly as memorable as Disney's Maleficent arguably actually detracts from the magic of the tale it's trying to tell. 
 Furthermore, there is a conspicuous part in the third act where Rosie is told by her animal friends that no matter how much she may wish otherwise, she is a princess at her core and must accept that responsibility, which makes the conclusion where (view spoiler)[she's able to have Peony take her place as the princess with no real fallout or consequences (hide spoiler)] feel like a bit of a cop-out, with the added unfortunate implication that a 'true' princess and an outspoken, headstrong female are contrary to one another. 
 Overall, Spindle's End falls in 3 1/2 stars territory for me as a book with a very strong first half that's partially - though not completely - dragged down by a more muddled second half. I wavered between giving it 3 or 4 stars here and decided on 4 because, for me, its good aspects and often-inventive reinterpretation of Sleeping Beauty's events ultimately outweigh its flaws, and I would still recommend it in general to people looking for a more fleshed-out version of Sleeping Beauty.