Spinners

Beautiful. Quiet, poignant, both thoughtful and thought-provoking. Would be terrific for book discussion, at least among people who are willing to admit that love, intimacy & reproduction are parts of life. I particularly appreciated that this was told from a male pov, and is, at heart, a love story. What is love, what does it mean to have it, what does it do to you if you don't have it, how can you show it, how can you gain it?

I might have to read it again someday. I definitely want to read (even) more by Napoli.

Reread. This time I am peeved. The ending was terribly sad, and for no good reason.

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 show more 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. show less

I found this retelling of the Rumplestiltskin story to be very affecting and sort of sweet- but not squeaky clean sweet, which was lovely. I liked having the backstory of all the characters filled in. Napoli's version of those stories was believable in a fairy-tale context. I read an Advance Uncorrected Proof, so I am assuming that the errors in spelling were fixed by the time the final version was published.

If you like fairy tales with a small bit of sex and violence added, you might want to pick this one up.

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 show more 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. show less

I enjoyed this book until the end. The play between "voices" (both the young girl's story and the crippled spinner now known as Rumpelstiltskin) were engrossing - I longed for the 'little man' to learn to love again--I longed for the young girl to find and have the love of a father. The descriptions of spinning made me want to learn how! But the ending was thoroughly disappointing. The authors had a chance (and seemed to be going in that direction) to change the course of Rumpelstiltskin but instead they chose the traditional ending (though a tad gory) of one of the most unusual fairy tales ever.

I checked this book out after reading Bound by Napoli. This is an excellent retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Because it's meant for younger readers, it was a quick read, but the story offers lots to discuss and think about. I really enjoyed this book and plan to buy several of Napoli's books.

A retelling of a fairytale but I don't like saying which one as that is part of the fun of reading the book - trying to work out which fairytale it is. Donna Jo Napoli is such a skilled writer filling in so much detail in these tales and making what were flat characters in the fairytale, real people.