A review by sapphirestars
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

4.0

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.