Spinners

I expected something...different than I got with this book. I enjoyed the descriptions of the various yarns Saskia creates, and I felt that the authors did a good amount of research regarding spinning. I also found some of the twists they put into the story to be interesting. However, there were a few things that just didn't work for me.

I am not fond of the third person present tense as a point of view for literature in general. While it can be done well, it usually feels stilted and awkward. It also makes it difficult to get any real sense of the passage of time within the story.

They fleshed out the characters of the miller and Rumpelstiltskin, but the king remains solely a one-dimensional individual, unknowable and ultimately forgettable. This isn't really different from the original fairy tale, but I still found it disappointing, largely because the authors did take time to flesh out the other characters and add new people to the story.

Finally, the ending just bothered me. The book just stops without any attempt to resolve things, without providing any sort of denouement or conclusion. I realize this isn't much different than the original fairy tale, but we're looking at a retelling, not the original. Meaning they don't have to hold strictly to type.