Customer Reviews

Beauty Sleep

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The story begins pretty much like you would expect a retelling of Sleeping Beauty to. The whole once upon a time, the king and queen longing to have a child, finally have a beautiful baby girl, forget to invite someone to christening, forgotten someone curses child, and so on and so forth. But this only takes up the first couple of pages. Everything that follows turns the beloved fairytale upside down and inside out...

Aurore is the spunky and very much awake "sleeping beauty" and the narrator of the tale. The main focus of the book is not about the long sleep or the kiss or anything you might at first suspect. Instead it focuses on what is was like growing up with such a threat looming in the not so distant future.

Aurore has always known what the future held in store for her, but it has not kept her from living her life to the fullest. She works beside the common people, helping them, and loves to explore the outside world that was forbidden to her for a long time by an overprotective mother. But when she turns 16, the year she is destined to prick her finger, the curse begins to show itself in the weather and in the animals with opposites seeming to war with each other, even as the curse and the anti-spell of sleep instead of death war within Aurore. When Aurore decides to run away to the enchanted forest to protect her people from the curse she carries within herself, Aurore finds her destiny ...and her true love, in something entirely unexpected...

I always say that any story can be turned topsy-turvy with a couple of what ifs...and this book has convinced me that Cameron Dokey believes that too. What if the person who cursed sleeping beauty was not essentially evil? Could living with the the fear of the curse be the real curse? What if sleeping beauty met the man of her dreams before she pricked her finger? What if sleeping beauty took her destiny in her own hands? Can you changer your destiny...do you really want to? Can love stand the test of time? But enough of that...you get the picture. Just so you know...it does end happily...

For years the king and queen had despaired of ever having a child so when Aurore arrived, the whole kingdom rejoiced. Well, almost everyone. There was one forgotten, embittered woman who resided at court who seized the opportunity to curse the sleeping baby and then disappeared. Aurore grew up with the curse overshadowing all of her days. Her parents were determined to protect her and so limited her activities to those that did not involve any sharp, pointed objects. Forbidden princesslike tasks of embroidery and sewing, her parents tried to interest Aurore in painting and weaving, both of which Aurore hated. But she hated her cousin, Oswald, nicknamed Charming, because he wasn't, even more. Until Oswald persuaded her parents to let her roam outside, then she loved him. Aurore was content to live her life the way that she grew up, carefully avoiding anything that would trigger the curse, but the backlash of magic that her avoidance cost her kingdom was too high. Aurore knew that her only chance was to run away to La Foret, the forbidden forest and hopefully take the magic with her. Unbeknownst to Aurore, however, was the fact that time moves quite differently in the forest. So when she meets a handsome stranger, nicknamed Ironheart, who has come to the forest to rescue a fair princess, she knows that he cannot be talking about her, can he?

This was an absolutely charming retelling of Sleeping Beauty that should delight young adult readers and adults everywhere. Aurore was a great character - headstrong, but she loved her parents so much and tried so hard to be what they wanted. I loved the description of her art and her lumpy rugs! The author has so many little touches that she adds throughout the story to make the characters come alive and to breathe new life into the old fairy tale classic. The ending is a big surprise and there are a lot of plot twists along the way, but, although difficult to accept at first, I find that I really enjoyed the author's creativity and unique adaptation of this fairy tale. I look forward to reading more by her!

This is a retelling of sleeping beauty (as you've probably heard before) but this retelling does so slightly differently. It focuses on what growing up with a curse hanging over you can be like, the fact Aurore has to stay away from the kitchen and ladylike tasks such as embroidery. It also shows how it must feel to have everyone knowing that they'll lose you in your 16th year, including your parents and subjects, and how this effects you as a heir to the throne.

When the curse starts effecting the kingdom with messed up magic causing all sorts of twisted things to happen, Aurore runs away to where there are no people she can affect with the curse. It is in La Foret that she meets Prince Ironheart and.... I'll let you read the book.

In this retelling you meet a charming, lively and likable heroine that you wish to succeed.

However, I felt the story was lacking something... it just felt a bit underdeveloped and is a very quick read. I think I would have enjoyed it more if some of the other characters stood out as much as Aurore (Ironheart actually is quite vivid as well) and if Dokey had gone into more depth with how Aurore felt knowing after 16 years she'd wake up a 100 years later! That seems like quite a big deal to me and although Dokey's explored it more than most I think she could have done so more.

One more thing that bothered me.... the ending, I'm not going to give anything away but... it was just a bit... dodgy. The guy is really nice and it's good they end up together but I think Aurore should have known him some other way. (This won't make sense but read it and it might)

A bit predictable, a bit short and a little dodgy in the end, but apart from that it's a really good read! I don't think there is a particular age range that it wouldn't be suitable for but over 13's might be looking for something more...

At birth, a princess named Aurore is cursed with a dreadful spell: at sixteen, she would prick herself and when one bright drop of blood was shed, she would die. Fortunately, her godmother performs a counterspell: instead of dying, Aurore would sleep for 100 years until her true love's kiss woke her.
Aurore runs away to the enchanted forest a few days after her sixteenth birthday, where she meets a prince nicknamed "Ironheart," who is searching for a princess that had been sleeping for 100 years. Together, they take the journey through the frightening forest and ...
Read the book to find out!
I very much liked this book and read it in less than three days. It is a thrilling page-turner that teaches to trust your heart - a must-read for ages 10 and up. The only thing that sort-of confused me was how Ironheart could have known about the princess and how the story ends. But stories can take their own paths and don't have to always make perfect sense. I very much enjoyed reading Beauty Sleep. It gave new meaning to "once upon a time ..."

This was a great version of sleeping beauty. I must admit, I've never really liked this particular fairy tale, but this one changed my mind. The heroine, Aurore, was likeable and funny, and by the end of the book, I really wanted her to have a happy ending.

Aurore was cursed at birth by Jane, a lady in waiting, to die at the age of 16 by pricking herself. Her mother's friend managed to change the curse so that she would sleep for a hundred years and then wake when someone kissed her. However, in this version, it doesn't have to be true love's kiss. So Aurore grows up and has adventures and life continues as normal. Oswald, possibly the most intriguing character, and Aurore's cousin, is her confidant and friend.

Then, after her 16th birthday, strange things begin to occur in the kingdom. Catastrophes so strange that the conflicting spells on Aurore are blamed. She feels she must leave the kingdom to save her people, and so sets of for the enchanted forest, La Foret. Before she runs off though, Oswald catches her, and there is an interesting conversation. I won't give it away here though.

So she steps into La Foret, and finds a young prince by the name of Ironheart. He is looking for a princess sleeping in the wood that sounds frighteningly like Aurore. But that can't be, because she's not asleep yet! Things get more confusing when they make it to the center of the forest and Aurore pricks herself and falls asleep, only to be awakened moments later by Ironheart. But how can this be? Has she gone forward in time? And IS Ironheart her true love, or could it be someone else, someone she never suspected? Read it, it's a great version!

This book was a fantastic book and kept me hooked untill the very end. The imagry was wonderful and the main character had such spirit. This is part where you wonder why I gave it only three stars. The ending of the book was sick and wrong. It is definatly unexspected, but still sick and wrong. I won't give it away and I recomend this book to anyone who can just ignor the ending.

Princess Aurore is born, and almost immediately after her birth she is cursed with death, and then with a slumber of 100 long years. Growing up, Aurore is forbidden to do normal things that young girls do, and also forbidden to step foot out of the palace, but after insistent pleading, her parents, the King and Queen, allow her to play outside, and eventually ride through the small community, and visit with the commoners around the palace. Then one day, Aurore meets a handsome man, who she begins a long, and adventurous journey with.

BEAUTY SLEEP is a charming retelling of the story "Sleeping Beauty," which we all know very well. Dokey has created an amazingly interesting, and exciting novel, involving a young princess, who we will all fall in love with. A must have.

Erika Sorocco

This will perfectly fill the bill if you're looking for a light, romantic bit of fluff to read on a rainy afternoon. It is (obviously) a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, with a few alterations.

Aurore is the long wished-for child of the king and queen, and a the standard curse is put upon her at her birth (not by an evil faerie, but by a woman named Jane). The curse, of course, is altered by her godmother in the usual arrangement of sleeping for one hundred years instead of dying. Unfortunately, the queen, angry that the godmother could not lift the curse entirely, banishes her from the kingdom, and we don't hear from her again.

This is the point at which the story begins to veer slightly from the fairy-tale. The first third of the book recounts Aurore's childhood -- being smothered by an overprotective mother; longing to go outside, but being forbidden for fear she will prick her finger on something sharp; and hating her cousin, whom everyone calls "Prince Charming", "because he isn't".

Prince Charming is an interesting character, and the main antagonist of this part of the book. (His real name is Oswald.)
He is the king's heir, since Aurore won't be around after her sixteenth birthday, and initially she loathes him. However, he and Aurore have a peculiar, reluctant sort of camaraderie going when things begin to pick up steam.

When Aurore is ten, she discovers that she has a knack for connecting with the people of the land, and her father ends up naming her his heir in place of Oswald, with Oswald and his descendants to be her stewards until she awakens. Oswald isn't thrilled about this.

Then Aurore's sixteenth birthday rolls around, and she doesn't prick her finger -- But odd things begin to happen in the land: a rain of blood, hailstones the size of a man's skull, and other such oddities.

Aware that she is the cause of the problems, Aurore sneaks out of the castle and runs away to La Foret, an enchanted forest which runs its own affairs as it sees fit and is rarely known to let anyone out from its borders. She hopes that the things plauging her land will follow her.
Time seems to bend slightly within the forest. She meets up with a scholarly prince on a quest to (oddly enough) awaken a sleeping princess, and they journey together to the heart of the forest.... and I won't give away the ending. Suffice it to say that it satisified the romantic in me.

Reading the reviews of others, I find it a little odd that most of the people who read the book and didn't like it had a problem with the ending. To me, the ending was the only way it could have been. Anyone who thinks otherwise wasn't paying attention to the overall weave of the plot. And I repeat -- it satisfied the romantic within.

The entire setting of the book is vaguely French. I'm not sure if the original tale was French or not, but this adds a nice overall flavor to the book.
I gave it four stars instead of five because it would have been nice to see the story drawn out a little longer, with perhaps a few more sub-plots and tie-ins. However, it never claimed to be more than a YA fantasy novel, so perhaps I'm expecting too much.

The story is written from the first-person perspective of Aurore. She is a very chatty narrator -- perhaps too much so at the beginning of the book. It seems as though she has to insert comments in parentheses every five or six setences, and this sort of slows things down. She eventually settles down to tell her story, though. The prose is light and witty, and perfect for an afternoon read. If you like fairy tales in general, I'd recommend this.

SPOILER: For those who have a problem with cousins marrying each other -- take a closer look at the nearest history book. It happened all the time within the families of the nobility.

As a slight retelling of the classic "Sleeping Beauty", this story is a wonderful twist without those dreaded fairy-tale cliches. Being the second book in the "Once Upon a Time..." series, it has a very different look on the original story of Briar Rose. If you begin to read it thinking it's going to be another book from your Disney Princess collection, think again. A death curse is cast, blood falls from the sky, and animals birth their own prey. When she is practically outcast to live out the fate of her curse, the stunning Aurore finds a man that keeps her constantly in thought and thinking more about someone she left behind, someone she might have loved...

Note that the end is not all that disturbing. Intermarriage between royal/noble blood families happened all the time (and still does). Also, her relationship with "Ironwill" is not hard to believe. What she liked in Ironheart were traits in Ironwill, and what she didn't like about Ironheart, Ironwill did not have. You see?

The reason I give it 4/5 is for the lengthiness. I feel it was too short for all of the author's reasons on why Aurore ends up with...the man she did to be explained. It just seemed too abrupt (or maybe I just wanted more...)

Remember to stay open-minded when starting this book. For we all know that Sleeping Beauty can only be cured by a kiss of true love, but this French flavored happy-ending will surprise you...
And I think in a good way.

"Beauty Sleep" makes the eight book in the "Once Upon a Time" series that I have read. This makes all of the books that have been published, thus far, until the release of "Golden" next week (which I also plan on reading once the store I work at receives it). As far as a retelling goes, it follows the story of "Sleeping Beauty" very well, with some new twists on the old, familiar plot.

A king and queen in a distant land are unhappy because they have been unable to bear an heir to rule their lands when they are gone. In their sorrow they name an heir, a nephew of theirs named Oswald, who is a precocious and sharp tongued boy. When he is 8 their dreams finally come true, a daughter is born with hair as gold as the sun, and they name her Aurore. In their happiness they plan a celebration for the christening, however they fail to invite one person, their cousin Jane, whom stood up in their wedding some years before. Jane is disgruntled about this oversight and comes to the celebration anyways, casting a spell over the babe as a means of retribution, should the girl live to see her sixteenth year she shall prick her finger and this one drop of spilled blood will cause her death. The King and Queen are distraught until a friend of theirs, Chantal, attempts to lift the spell by adding the bit that Aurore will not die, but merely fall into a deep sleep that will last 100 years, only to be awakened by the kiss of true love.

The Queen raises Aurore to be sheltered child, keeping her away from anything that may cause her to prick her finger. This includes not allowing her to venture into the outdoors. Aurore becomes restless, as the bulk of her indoor activities include studying and exchanging insults with Oswald, whom Aurore has dubbed "Charming Oswald" after the court calls him "Prince Charming"... purely because he tends to be nasty to her. Obviously there is a lot of tension between the two, as the King still won't change the decree that Oswald is the heir, not Aurore, even though she has been born to it. Evidently the spells are on everyone's mind. But Oswald attempts to endear himself to Aurore, arguing to her parents that she should be allowed outside into the gardens at least. This causes her to warm to him a little. Only later, when her father allows her out into the surrounding villages, does Oswald realize his mistake. As he had never desired at all to meet with the common people and Aurore expresses the interest most passionately, this makes the King decide that Aurore should be named the heir, no matter what the consequences of her future life might be, so again there forms a rift between Oswald and Aurore.

When she turns sixteen a series of plagues befalls the kingdom, all connected to the dueling curses over poor Aurore's head. She becomes unhappy, knowing that everyone is suffering because of her, and sets out to a place called La Floret, an enchanted forest that previously had been off limits to her. Here, in an abandoned cottage, she meets Prince Ironheart, whom has come to awaken a sleeping princess that he had been told about by his Grandfather. Naturally Aurore is suspect, as this is precisely the prophecy that she has had to live with, but she is unwilling to curb Ironheart's enthusiasm. So off they set, each to their own destiny, to discover all of the mysteries of La Floret.

There are obvious similarities between the classic story and this superb retelling. I don't even think I need to go into those. What struck me about this version most was the relationship between Oswald and Aurore, for it is a type of relationship built on opposites. Where he is busy in charming the pompous court, Aurore finds comfort in engaging with the "common" townspeople...where Aurore spends her days in the mud and dirt Oswald is finicky about his appearance and never appears out of sorts in public. It all seems that these two are not meant to be, as Oswald also can be characterized as a pompous jerk in the onset of the story. However, Dokey proves the old adage that opposites attract, and this story is utter proof of that, if nothing else. I enjoyed reading this story and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in fairy tales and romantic fantasy.