The Hero and the Crown

by Robin McKinley

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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First off, I have to thank Jessie for being a total sweetheart and gifting this book to me (along with the second book in this series, The Blue Sword, and a Beauty and the Beast retelling) -- my very first Robin McKinley books. She and Terri were the ones who convinced me I needed to read them, so thank you, guys!

I finally picked up The Hero and the Crown after a long string of very disappointing ARC's. Almost every ARC I've picked up lately has just been a huge let-down, and I have had very little inclination to actually finish reading any of them. So, in complete despair, I picked up Hero, hoping that it would come through where all my other recent books had not. And it did.

Now, it must be said: While I did enjoy this book, and I know that there are legions of Robin McKinley fans out there, and this series is beloved by many (including Jessie and Terri)... as you can probably tell from my rating, I'm not falling head over heels for the Damar series yet. (I'M SO SORRY.) But I did enjoy Hero, even though I had a few issues with it as a matter of personal taste.

First off, though, one thing that impressed me about this series was the speed at which McKinley painted a clear picture in my head of the main characters' personalities -- and it was all done by showing, which struck me as super impressive.

I really liked the king's daughter, Aerin, a young woman desperate to find where she belongs -- which doesn't appear to be in the royal court, as her mother was feared to be a witch, and Aerin herself seems to have no gift of magic like those of "true" royal blood should have. Tor, her best and only friend and heir to the throne, was also immediately a favorite. He is very protective of Aerin, willing to teach her sword fighting and archery, and he's one of the only nobles who doesn't ignore or flat-out dislike Aerin. His and Aerin's friendship throughout the book is one that I really loved.

I also appreciated that Aerin's father, the king Arlbeth, was present -- he was genuinely interested in his daughter's well-being, and encouraged her in ways that I don't think a lot of parents are "allowed" to do in YA nowadays. Usually they're barriers between the main character and their goals, but Arlbeth, while wanting Aerin to stay safe, still acknowledged that she had to risk some things to find happiness.

Luthe was another character I enjoyed, though most of what I could tell you about his character are sort of spoilers.... I can say that he didn't get nearly enough page-time, though! He's technically in the book for a pretty long period of time, but many of these sections are summarized instead of being fully fleshed out, which -- because I really wanted to see more of him -- was disappointing. :(

So yes, the characters were ones that I really enjoyed.

The plot was pretty good, too -- enough to keep me interested (THANK GOD), though I do feel it wandered at times. Some of the causes for things, or the reasons driving certain events, weren't revealed until later, or they were sort of forgotten about and then turned up fortuitously later on. (Wow this is hard to explain without spoilers.)

The main "issue" I had (if you can call it that) was with the writing style. I'll preface this section of my review by saying that this book was originally published in 1984, it has won the Newberry Medal, and objectively, I can say that it is a very good book. It portrays a heroine who, despite her fears, goes out and fights for what she wants in life, but who also has a strong sense of duty and selflessness -- and it does so very well.

Subjectively, though... the writing style wasn't for me. I mentioned earlier that McKinley does an amazing job of showing (rather than telling) details about the characters -- and I actually think that this was part of my issue. Almost everything was shown. After a while, it made me feel like I was reading event after event after event: There was very little introspection (even though it wasn't necessarily needed for character development), and the story began to feel like a constant small rock-slide - not getting any bigger or smaller, but just constantly rolling at the same momentum.

This gave the book a weird feel when it came to pacing -- though events themselves escalated and tapered off and then escalated again at the end, it all seemed to be handled in the same sort of "these are events that happened" style, which (for me) made the more exciting scenes less exciting, because they remained just a series of events; and it also sort of made the book have a less personal or relatable tone.

It also often felt like many sections were summarized instead of being fully fleshed-out, which was disappointing. Earlier, I mentioned Luthe as a character I really enjoyed -- and I did. However, I do feel like he was under-developed because of the summarizing. Many of the months he's in the story are ones that are glossed over really quickly. Granted, there's not much "action" happening during those times, but I would've loved to see some slower, more personal scenes in there to fill out the "chronicling of events" sort of style that seemed to be the norm.

 
In conclusion...

I liked it. Interestingly, I feel like The Hero and the Crown read exactly like how I expected a slightly older, well-loved classic fantasy book to read, and I'm absolutely not surprised that it has garnered so many fans since its publication -- it deserves every one of them, and more, since obviously people are still discovering this series! ;) I'm a little disappointed that I didn't fall head over heels in love with this book, but all in all, I'm very glad I read it, and I'm excited to read the next in the series, The Blue Sword. :)

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There were books involved...