And if the dialogue is still somewhat stilted, well, let's just write that off as historical flavor, shall we?While I knew the basics of the Robin Hood story (robs from the rich, gives to the poor, yada yada), I knew it almost exclusively from movies - this was my first written retelling. However, while I can't say that the language worked for her retelling of the Robin Hood story, neither did it particularly work against it - there is a fair bit of dialogue and quite a lot of action to break up some of the more tedious descriptive passages that marked her other books. Her writing style and I just don't get along very well - to me it frequently comes off as ponderous and overblown, although I can see how others could see it as lending whatever she's telling an air of gravitas. Review: I've only had middling success with McKinley's novels in the past, so I approached this one with a little trepidation. Robin's not terribly comfortable as a leader, especially when the price on his head could be leading all of his friends and loved ones into terrible danger. When he is forced to go into hiding after accidentally killing another man, his friends turn him into a rallying point for all of the Saxons who are tired of being under the thumb of their Norman rulers - including the Sherriff of Nottingham, whose ever-increasing rents are making banditry seem like an ever more attractive option to the local peasants and villagers - and more than few of the disillusioned young nobles. In McKinley's version, Robin is a forester the king's part of Sherwood Forest, and a Saxon. Summary: Robin Hood is one of those figures of legend who goes through endless iterations each retelling emphasizing some aspects while downplaying or changing others. But Much and Marian convince him that perhaps his personal catastrophe is also an opportunity: an opportunity for a few stubborn Saxons to gather together in the secret heart of Sherwood Forest and strike back against the arrogance and injustice of the Norman overlords. But he is ambushed by a group of the Chief Forester's cronies, who challenge him to an archery contest.and he accidentally kills one of them in self-defense. Robin has been granted a rare holiday to go to the Nottingham Fair, where he will spend the day with his friends Much and Marian. But Robin does not want to leave Nottingham or lose the title to his father's small tenancy, because he is in love with a young lady named Marian - and keeps remembering that his mother too was gentry and married a common forester. Young Robin Longbow, subapprentice forester in the King's Forest of Nottingham, must contend with the dislike of the Chief Forester, who bullies Robin in memory of his popular father.
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