Ace, $5.99, ISBN 0-441-00583-7
Fantasy, 1998 (Reissue)

Rose Daughter is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, but dang it, it is slower than a one legged-tortoise doused on amphetamines. Beautiful writing can’t disguise the fact that an over-90’s senior citizen karaoke session is more happening than this book.

Beauty is the youngest of three daughters of a wealthy merchant. Eldest Lionheart is beautiful and courageous, second daughter Jeweltongue is beautiful and eloquent, and Beauty, ironically, isn’t as beautiful but she is Martha Stewart of the fantasy world when it comes to gardening and housekeeping. Daddy goes bankrupt and they move to a smaller place, Rose Cottage, in provincial Longchance. Beauty and her sisters put the tumbledown house back to some semblance of livability; Daddy discovers that one of his ship is still sailing, goes off (with a promise to bring back a Rose for Beauty), comes back empty-handed, seeks refuge in Mr Beast’s home, steals a rose, gets caught, and Beauty is sent to live with the Beast.

There, I’ve summarized half of the book already.

The remaining half gets even slower. Everyone starts talking in two-page monologues, takes ten paragraphs to walk across the room, and I’m glad no one does anything more exerting – think of how long this book would be if someone actually got married! Beauty spends all her time tending roses (one pruning takes about a page of descriptions) or dreaming of really nice but boring things in one repetitive circle (repeat and rinse, repeat and rinse). And at the end of the day I watch Beauty walk off into the sunset with Beast feeling nothing but numbness in my backside.