Our main character Briar Rose lives in a small town called Bliss and she is obsessed with fairytales. She loves dreaming of far off places, daring sword fights and princes in disguise yet in her mind her life will never measure up to this fantasy. Briar is actually living a very different fantasy with a very different outcome. Briar is cursed to fall asleep on her 16th birthday and as she does she is transported into a twisted fairytale, one she has to survive if she wants to live till her next birthday.
I’m going to start from the beginning, this book started with quite a bit of momentum. It started with this really cool idea of using the towns lineage to describe what was happening in Briars life and I really liked that. However, from there the book got kind of strange. Apparently the town of Bliss has had magic in its history books for centuries yet it is a secret that Briars friend can do magic. It was this unspoken truth that she could do something that had been involved in the town for so long. I didn’t understand it very well and it felt as if the magical aspect of the story wasn't integrated well and was just there to push the story along. I feel that it would have worked better if this concept was explained more and was mentioned more by the secondary characters in the story rather than just the main characters. Furthermore, Briar’s love life confused me way more than it needed to. I understand that she wants to live her life like a Disney movie but her romantic relationships were constantly rushed. The boy she falls in love with by the end of the book is one she was told to stay away from so I don’t really understand that as soon as she gets the chance she decides to fall in love with him. Within 100 pages she goes from hating him to being madly in love with him. Don’t get me wrong I think they make a great couple but their relationship was rushed and I feel was only written in to once again progress the story. Finally, apart from the “discrete” magic and the insta-love this book was entertaining. I loved how Jana Oliver compared Briars life to the story of Sleeping Beauty and I feel that made it easier for me to connect with the story and make it a more enjoyable read. Oliver also crammed a lot of information into one novel and was successful in being able to explain all of it, something that once again made the story enjoyable but also effortless to understand.
A great read for anyone looking for a twisted re-telling of an incredible classic!
Erin, Year 9
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