Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip

I intended to write this review yesterday, before the book club that was going to discuss it in the evening. But it didn't matter how many times I opened this page, I just sat there, unable to think of the words I wanted to say about this book. I'd liked it well enough, but damned if I could think of a single thing to say.

So it was a little helpful when I went to my book club and discovered that the other people there had pretty much hated it. I still would say that I liked it overall, but I also can't say that a single one of their criticisms were wrong, and often, what they had to say sparked similar annoyance in me. I'm still not in the "hated it" camp, but, influenced by those around me, I could see why my initial attempts to write about this book were met with difficulty, because I was having trouble thinking of specific things I liked.

Which is too bad, because I sort of liked the writing style. That being said, the story itself was very repetitive. I agreed totally when that came up as a criticism. The more I think about it, the more the middle-to-the-end of the book goes over and over the same territory, even literally, as Rois, the main character, goes from her house to the house of the man who has disappeared to the woods three or four times.

(This is both a Snow White and Rose Red tale, and, slightly, a Tam Lin tale. The Tam Lin aspect was why I'd picked it for the group, and I was disappointed more wasn't made of it.) Two sisters live in a peasant town, and are relatively happy. One is content to marry her childhood sweetheart, the other likes running around barefoot in the woods too much to be truly normal, although everyone seems to know her eccentricities and love and accept her anyway. It's very much Belle from Beauty & the Beast syndrome - she doesn't fit into this provincial life, but really, the life isn't that bad (in this story). It's kind of frustrating when we get the leads in these fairy tale stories that aren't so much critiques of fairy tale life as they are interested in telling the story of the "girl who isn't like other girls." The one who runs wild in the woods and Has Opinions.

This wild girl is named Rois, and no one was quite sure how the hell that was supposed to be pronounced. Rose? Like Lois, but with an R? Royce?  A mysterious man comes to their town to rebuild his ancestral manor, and maybe he's actually come from the land of the fairies. Rois falls in love with him, and then her sister falls in love with him, with the whole "wastes away staring out the window when he doesn't come" thing going on. 

What frustrated me about the Tam Lin elements is that Rois is told what she needs to do to free him about a third of the book in, and then proceeds to not do anything about it until the last 30 pages. And I'm not sure why the Fairy Queen who was trying to hold him told her what to do - it would have made more sense coming from other lips. But if we're billing this as a Tam Lin story, let's go right into that. And maybe instead of going over the same ground over and over again in the mid-to-end of the book, you could have the Tam Lin stuff happen and then write about what the consequences are after it's officially over? I mean, if you're looking to fill space, you could have a third act.