That collection was weird. I definitely was disappointed by it, having really loved the collection A Door in the Hedge. (Though that may also be because I read the latter at around 12 or 14, and the former in college, with tougher expectations.) McKinley is just an odd writer. I love her atmospheric prose style but it drives me nuts the way things just end without anybody really having done anything. Her solution to resolving a plot seems to be to throw arcane magic at it. I think Deerskin may be my favorite of her works because the heroine does grow as a person and has a real confrontation with the bad guy, even if it is (as usual) mystical and odd.
I do remember thinking the modern story about the girl in the house was kinda cool, though. Much better than the one where the girl eats a bunch of fluff out of the air or something and that randomly solves her problems.
Hayley finds McKinley frustrating, too, so we are not along!
I think by "fluff out of the air" you are remembering "Buttercups"-- they eat some kinda weird flower-- but I liked that one! I can't think that another of the stories would receive that description.
No, it was one of the Luthe ones. I just remember the men are talking and the girl is going around - well, I remember her as eating something random, but maybe collecting it? doing something else with it? - and then she's just like "Cool, I'm good now."
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I do remember thinking the modern story about the girl in the house was kinda cool, though. Much better than the one where the girl eats a bunch of fluff out of the air or something and that randomly solves her problems.
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I think by "fluff out of the air" you are remembering "Buttercups"-- they eat some kinda weird flower-- but I liked that one! I can't think that another of the stories would receive that description.
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Does that sound familiar?
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