I'm Back!

After months of not updating due to health issues, lack of internet, lack of time, and lack of sanity, I have returned! I'll be blogging on the progress I'm making with The Novel (name suggestions, folks? Five of Cups just didn't fit in the end), soon enough, but I thought I'd ease my readers back in with a book review I wrote about Robin McKinley's young-adult fantasy classic, The Hero and the Crown. The review was written with a teenage audience in mind, but I hope everyone can get a kick out of it. Enjoy!

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It was 1985 when Robin McKinley first published her novel The Hero and the Crown. Thankfully, I don't remember much about that fine decade having made my appearance towards the tail end of it, but I've heard the stories. Neon spandex. Side-ponytails. Scrunchies. Leg warmers. Sure, all these things have a time and a place (hopefully a time and a place with a healthy dose of irony, ladies, please) but they certainly no longer have a place in everyday life. Nor do we turn on our radios to rock-out to Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls. So what use could a novel from back then be? Our main character, Aerin, is from fantastical medieval-style kingdom created in a decade when people willingly took to the streets wearing multi-coloured bicycle shorts; what could a modern girl possibly learn from her? The answer, as it turns out, is a heck of a lot.

Aerin is a princess with long red-hair, fair skin, and a whole mess of problems. Her entire life she's heard stories about her mother, who died giving birth to her. People say the Queen was a sorceress who bewitched the king into marrying her so she could produce an heir for their kingdom, Damar. The hitch? She died of despair when she realised she had born a baby girl.

Not exactly a legacy one would be jumping up and down to claim.

On top of all the whispers, Aerin just can't seem to fit in. She doesn't look like the other people in Damar, she has a beautiful, perfect cousin who delights in torturing her, and unlike the rest of the royal family she doesn't display a certain talent for...

Well, you'll find out if you read it.

Are you with our heroine yet? Ever felt like the odd one out? Ever worried that you'll never be as good as that other girl everyone seems to adore? Ever feel like no one sees you, or that everyone sees you for the wrong reasons? Seems like girls worlds, universes and decades over feel the same fears and insecurities, (even if they don’t share the same fashion sensibilities).

McKinley spins a story that is nearly impossible to put down. Like any good, modern girl, Aerin is not content to sit about the castle, feeling awkward, and letting everyone else have all the glory. She is smart, she is savvy, she is nurturing, kind and witty. And, most importantly, she is strong. The book features a princess and a tower, but it is in no way the tale of a doe-eyed, simpering maiden waiting for a prince to come along and save her. Aerin finds adventures around most corners, ones she seeks and ones she can’t escape. She makes mistakes, she kicks butt, and things don’t always turn out the way she plans. She finds love in unexpected places, and the most obvious of all.

A quarter of a century has not made The Hero and the Crown unreadable or outdated. Aerin’s struggle will inspire girls of today-- from our skinny jeans to our funky belts to our cardigans, and back again—as much as it spoke to the scrunchie-wearing crowd of yesteryear. Pick up a copy; you’ll be glad you did.