Rating: 
Summary: Rose Daughter is a riviting novel with destinct morals.
Review: Rose Daughter is a moving fantasy with many descriptive characters and morals that can be applied in everyday life. Beauty, the main female character, doesn't allow the Beast's ghastly appearance to prevent her from becoming friends with him. To the youth of today, this would show the well-known moral "You can't judge a book by it's cover". A lot of times, children and even adults tend to judge others by their looks and if this factor does not please them, they don't bother to see further. When Beauty finds that even Beasts have inner beauty, she is able to progress with his friendship. Not only do the morals make Rose Daughter five star, but also the romance and fantasy. Personally, in every book I read, romance is a key factor which I look for. McKinley applies romance in a smooth enough way, where as it's not sappy. At the same time, throughout the whole book, fantasy is always "floating in the air". This critic give definetly awards this fantastic book 2 thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the first time
Review: When I first heard that McKinley had written a second retelling of "Beauty and the Beast," I was a bit skeptical. However, when I read it, I discovered that not only did she have another take was worth telling, she's also become an even better writer who had learned how to end a novel. "Beauty" was a realistic (at least, within the magic) novel; "Rose Daughter" takes place in Balladland, where a day in the enchanted castle can be a month in the world, and a rose can be the key to healing or the thorn of dispair. It's like a novel-length fairy tale.Reading other comments, it looks like the reviewers who had such a bad reaction were looking for a fantasy adventure and were rudely surprized. They have a point -- if you gobble up Robert Jordan or can't stand a metaphor that gets in the way of the plot, don't bother with this. But if you read fantasy for the magic, for the wonder comes from the healing of the world's pain, "Rose Daughter" is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing. Truly tragically disappointing.
Review: I absolutely adored Beauty, McKinley's first novel. Rose Daughter? No. Not. At. All. Whereas Beauty had a spunky heroine, full of doubts, ideas, and heart, *this* Beauty has no soul. She's merely lost in the vague, page-long descriptions, muddy plot, and inching action. I was bored to tears, and frustrated with the rambling sentences and wooden dialogue. I like my magic in big doses, but it would take a sorcerer's potion poured through my ear to get me to try to attempt this mess again.
Rating:
Summary: Rose Daughter: Robin McKinley at her mature best
Review: I, like other McKinley fans of long standing, felt many trepidations about reading this new telling of the story of Beauty and the Beast. McKinley's first version (Beauty) has been a favorite of mine for years and I wasn't sure if I was ready to risk not liking one of her books or, worse yet, damaging my long-held wonder for this gorgeous fairy tale. I agonized for a bit and decided to risk it. Then I read it in one day. True, it lacks some of the fantasy-come-true elements of Beauty and some of McKinley's earlier books, but what it has instead is a realism that is utterly captivating. It is truly the work of a refined intellect, and one can clearly see the beautiful maturity of the author revealed in this book. Everyone will of course compare this book with Beauty (I do, myself), but they are unlike in the way that wildflowers and roses are unlike. Each has spectacular lovliness, but where the wildflower is untamed beauty, the rose is cultivated, perhaps more deeply wondrous. Which do I prefer? Both, of course.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice, but she did it better the first time
Review: I was so excited to read this book, as Beauty is probably my all-time favorite. However, I often felt that I was struggling to get through Rose Daughter...not at all like my constant anticipation of the next page of Beauty. Yes, in Rose Daughter McKinley develops the fairy tale further, fleshing out settings and characters and plot with long, detailed descriptions. There is also much more emphasis on magic in this version. But in making the story more complex, McKinley nearly ruins the simple beauty of the tale which she captures so well in Beauty. Rose Daughter is not at all a bad book, and many of its descriptions and ideas are very intriguing, but it lacks a strong sense of story.
Rating:
Summary: Oddly disappointing...
Review: Having recently read Sunshine and Spindle's End, I picked up Rose Daughter expecting the same delightful twist to a common tale, this time Beauty and the Beast. So I was disappointed to discover it did not particularly engage me. I finished it -- something has to be truly awful for me not to finish -- but I was not smiling with satisfaction at the end. I was not involved in the characters, the plotting seemed entirely too pat, there seemed no doubt in each step of the tale. Granted, everyone should know the story of Beauty and the Beast. But McKinley usually gives us something different, a parallel tale perhaps, in which the characters do not necessarily do the same as their fairytale counterparts. The primary failing for me was with the characters. They were interesting on the surface, but I didn't seem to get beyond that surface. They seemed sketched, rather than fleshed out. We were told what they were feeling, rather than allowed to share their experiences. My first disappointment with McKinley: if you want to try her, go for one of the others, or her first Beauty and the Beast tale, aptly named Beauty.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not as good as the original
Review: Twenty years ago, she wrote "Beauty", a wonderful retelling of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast". Now she comes back to the same theme with a fresh perspective. However, this lacks the simple beauty (pardon the expression) of the original. The language is lyrical, conjuring up wonderful images, but somehow I felt more empathy for the characters in her first book. Which is not to say that the characters here are lacking - they simply pale a little bit in comparison. There is a slight feeling of trying too hard - more description and devotion to atmosphere than concentrating on the tale itself. But for all that, still a beautiful story.
Rating: 
Summary: wtf?!
Review: I have always considered myself a fastasy freak. I've read over a hundred version of Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, etc. So I can honestly say this book is the worst version of Beauty and the Beast I have ever read. The main character came off as, well, kind of retarded and there is more romance between a brother and a sister than Beauty and the Beast. At times I felt like Beauty was talking to her large dog rather than her "beloved beast". Furthermore, the names of the characters were just rediculous. Those of you who read this book, you know what I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to trash talk Ms. Mckinley. I loved THE HERO AND THE CROWN and THE BLUE SWORD, but either she definately lost her touch with this book or some third grader wrote this book and gave all the credit to McKinley. I am so serious, there were grammatical errors in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Boring...Hated the Ending
Review: I wanted to read this book since it was by McKinley and I had read BEAUTY (which I loved and love to reread over and over). I had expected this book to be just as good as BEAUTY, if not better since it was longer and looked more interesting. I think it started out pretty well...but then just got worse and worse. I found parts of the book confusing...I wasn't able to picture what was going on as I am usually able to do while reading McKinley's books. I absolutely hated the ending...I know Beauty is supposed to love the Beast for who he is...but I can't even imagine a human girl marrying a huge beast. The fairy-tale ending with the beast changing into a human is much better.
Rating:
Summary: I tried-I really did.
Review: I like Fairy-Tale-Retold stories, and I've heard so much about Robin McKinley I decided to try it. The dialogue was boring, wooden, dull, and unimaginative. Beauty had no personality. The dissapointing thing was that sometimes it seemed like the story could pick up. When Beauty's roses bloomed after constant almost obsessive gardening, and when the Beast discovered her tending after his roses, those scenes were deep and actually believable. Those scenes hinted at PERSONALITIES. But soon I realized that no one in the book had a true personality. Another thing is the way this book was written. It was too...flowery for my tastes. There were constant metaphors, and so many adjectives it was really hard to understand. I could read five paragraphs and suddenly realize they were still describing a character. It was confusing, dull, and overly-dramatic. It seemed like plot elements were thrown in just for aesthetics. Like the Beast, painting with his teeth?! I understand the goal of that, Robin wanted us to know that the Beast was a deep and sensitive person, but the Beast had no personality (at least no more than the other characters) and therefore I didn't care about him. The one thing I liked about this book was the castle. I loved the eerie quality it was given, the constant silence and bizarre change of weather. I think that was what kept me reading. I made it halfway and finally just dropped it. It's laying on my shelf now, collecting skin tissue. Oh well. I gave it a shot.
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