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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Everyone likes a fairy tale story because everyone wants things to come out right in the end. And even though to tell a story is to tell some kind of untruth, one often suspects that what seems to be untruth is really a hidden truth.
Briar Rose is a new take on the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. Gemma loves telling her grandchildren the story of Sleeping Beauty. However on her death bed she reveals that she is Briar Rose and makes her granddaughter promise her to find the castle, find the prince and find the maker of the spells. Rebecca begins a search into her grandmother's past to discover that some fairy tales have a basis in reality.
I was not overly fond of the writing in this one, but about halfway through the author found her stride and I found myself thoroughly interested in the tale of Briar Rose. I also loved how the author went back and forth between Rebecca in the present day and the past where Gemma told the story. Often I find time jumps disconcerting, but in this case it was very effective.
It is a darker version of the fairy tale, so if you pick it up expecting something like Disney's Sleeping Beauty you will be surprised. There are no witches or curses. It is set during the Holocaust, and while the story follows the same general lines as the fairy tale, some of these events did happen, making it a story that strikes deep.
Cross posted at Kaora's Corner.
Briar Rose is a new take on the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty. Gemma loves telling her grandchildren the story of Sleeping Beauty. However on her death bed she reveals that she is Briar Rose and makes her granddaughter promise her to find the castle, find the prince and find the maker of the spells. Rebecca begins a search into her grandmother's past to discover that some fairy tales have a basis in reality.
I was not overly fond of the writing in this one, but about halfway through the author found her stride and I found myself thoroughly interested in the tale of Briar Rose. I also loved how the author went back and forth between Rebecca in the present day and the past where Gemma told the story. Often I find time jumps disconcerting, but in this case it was very effective.
It is a darker version of the fairy tale, so if you pick it up expecting something like Disney's Sleeping Beauty you will be surprised. There are no witches or curses. It is set during the Holocaust, and while the story follows the same general lines as the fairy tale, some of these events did happen, making it a story that strikes deep.
Cross posted at Kaora's Corner.
I deeply loved this book. Its the retelling of Sleeping Beauty set to coincide with the events of the Holocaust.This is a fantastic YA novel and one of my favorite Fairy Tale/Holocaust crossover books.
The idea of this book was wonderful, but the execution was a bit lacking. I very much enjoyed the snippets of the Briar Rose story told by her grandmother and the brillant contrast with the grandmother's experience. However, the love story was completely unrealistic and undeveloped and many characters were just flat. To me, it seemed it either needed to be cut back further to a short story or reworked to include some more dimensional characters. I would recommend it, but it's not my favorite book.
A beautiful work telling a tragic tale of the holocaust mixed up with a fairy tale. The one complaint I had was the pattern of fairy tale chapter followed by Becca's tale chapter was abandoned at the end. I wish Yolen had kept that cadence.
I actually didn't finish this. I started it thinking it was middle grade, but when I was introduced to the adult sisters' bickering I was like, "Hmm, this would be ridiculously boring for that age bracket," and I looked at the book more closely. It's young adult, and it didn't feel like good young adult.
Then when I got to the first introduction of the romantic figure I was like, "Nah. No thank you." It didn't help that I flipped back later in the book and came to another clichéd, sappy line. It might have been great, but I don't have a lot of patience for books that turn me off in this way.
Then when I got to the first introduction of the romantic figure I was like, "Nah. No thank you." It didn't help that I flipped back later in the book and came to another clichéd, sappy line. It might have been great, but I don't have a lot of patience for books that turn me off in this way.
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This book was fantastic! I knew right of the bat I was going to like it, just by the way it was written and the characters developed. The story begins with a grandmother (called Gemma because her granddaughters couldn't pronounce 'grandma') telling for what we can tell is perhaps the millionth time, the story of Sleeping Beauty. What the story's protagonist called "Seepin' Boot". :]
I smiled. I cried. I was very interested. All in all, this is definitely a good read in my book, one that I will have to add to my 'to buy' mental list. I was completely unsure how the author would be able to pull off a Holocaust story, with a bit of fairytale twist (really now, doesn't it just sound contradictory?). But it was successful.
One line that made me chuckle: "She went to bed finished only a few pages of McKinley's Beauty, a book she read whenever she felt troubled" (92). The direct reference to a well-revered fairytale retelling made me want to redouble my efforts to read Beauty.
I will have to check out more in this Terri Windling Fairy-Tale Series as well as more work by Jane Yolen. I have always had the notion to get my hands on a copy of her novella The Devil's Arithmetic.
I smiled. I cried. I was very interested. All in all, this is definitely a good read in my book, one that I will have to add to my 'to buy' mental list. I was completely unsure how the author would be able to pull off a Holocaust story, with a bit of fairytale twist (really now, doesn't it just sound contradictory?). But it was successful.
One line that made me chuckle: "She went to bed finished only a few pages of McKinley's Beauty, a book she read whenever she felt troubled" (92). The direct reference to a well-revered fairytale retelling made me want to redouble my efforts to read Beauty.
I will have to check out more in this Terri Windling Fairy-Tale Series as well as more work by Jane Yolen. I have always had the notion to get my hands on a copy of her novella The Devil's Arithmetic.
I read this while on a journey though the Nebula shortlist winners, and it was the first book I intentionally read because of that challenge I set for myself.
This was certainly not what I expected from SFF award winners. This was a holocaust story, of a woman trying to find her grandmother's history under the Nazi regime. Interlaced though that story is her grandmother's story of Briar Rose, with just enough changes from the more familiar tale to realize that there might be more to her story than just a simple fairytale.
Overall, I found this book to be enjoyable enough to read, despite the obviously very harrowing content, but it didn't move me. Ultimately it was a fairly direct story with nothing surprising or particularly interesting.
Still, I'm happy to have read it, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a story about the Holocaust that is a bit different than most of the others I've read.
This was certainly not what I expected from SFF award winners. This was a holocaust story, of a woman trying to find her grandmother's history under the Nazi regime. Interlaced though that story is her grandmother's story of Briar Rose, with just enough changes from the more familiar tale to realize that there might be more to her story than just a simple fairytale.
Overall, I found this book to be enjoyable enough to read, despite the obviously very harrowing content, but it didn't move me. Ultimately it was a fairly direct story with nothing surprising or particularly interesting.
Still, I'm happy to have read it, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a story about the Holocaust that is a bit different than most of the others I've read.
Wow, what an interesting concept! I found myself absorbed in the intermittent telling of the tale and trying to guess what would happen... However, the latter half of the book kind of didn't capitalize on the build-up as much as it could have?