A once upon a time
A curse
A prick of the finger
A sleeping beauty
A handsome prince
A kiss
A happily ever after…The End
Now that’s how the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty goes. But not so for Cameron Dokey’s retelling of my favorite fairytale—not to mention my favorite Disney movie. I mean, how could you not have a crush on Prince Philip? Okay, he’s not Edward Cullen, but still.
Anyhow, Beauty Sleep starts out the same. You know. Wicked fairy (or cousin Jane in this tale) feels slighted when she fails to receive an invitation to the royal christening of baby Aurore in some kingdom that none of our major airlines fly to. Oops! Now don’t you hate it when that happens? I was referring to the invitation part. Well, you know what happens next. Blab blab blab blab.
Flash forward almost sixteen years later. Princess Aurore, who never really fit in at court—in other words, she isn’t part of the in crowd—does what no one else can be bothered to do, other than her father the king. She spents time doing manual labor with the common people while getting to know them better. Well, who needs to be popular with the in crowd anyway? Okay, the down side? That crowd tends to stab you in the back, as Aurore eventually learns.
On her sixteenth birthday, Aurore discovers that not only will the impending curse cause her misfortune—which was, of course, downgraded so that she’s supposed to, instead, end up working on her beauty sleep for one hundred years—but it will also inflict harm to the entire kingdom. Being the generous and kindhearted princess that she is, she escapes to la forêt—the enchanted forest—to seek an end to the curse.
Now where’s the hot looking prince, you may ask? Well, it turns out Prince Ironheart—who’s really just a regular looking teen—has a mission of his own. He bumps into Aurore in the forest. She agrees to help him find the sleeping princess who he is supposed to kiss and awaken from a curse. Naturally, this is all very confusing to Aurore since she’s supposed to be that princess, but she’s very much awake.
I’m not going to tell you what happens because then you won’t buy the book. And then the good people at Simon Pulse, who edit the Once upon a Time series, might come after me with a curse of their own. And well, I don’t exactly have the time to go on a quest to end the evil magic—unlike in fairytales where heroines seem to have all the time in the world.
But I will tell you that the book—as are the others in the series—is well worth the read. It is written in the first person point of view, and Princess Aurore is a delightfully witty character you can’t help but to root for. There are many twists and turns that will leave you unable to put the book down, and many surprises that you won’t find in the original tale.
Now I’m off to buy another book from the series. Maybe the retelling of The Little Mermaid. Oh, I do hope she doesn’t die in that version. I do so hate it when that happens…