Today is more of a lazy day, since I'm not at work. Which means I finished a book I've been reading for a week or so now. My teen book club chose Cameron Dokey's Beauty Sleep for our next meeting. Dokey has retold several fairy tales as novels, and this one is the story of Sleeping Beauty. I've also read her Storyteller's Daughter, which is the story of Sheherazade and the thousand and one Arabian nights. It was gorgeous. That is really the only way I can think to describe it. Sort of in the same vein, is Sunlight and Shadow, which is Mozart's Magic Flute . I didn't love that one, but maybe that's because I don't really know that story, having only heard the music. Lastly, I just looked it up, and it seems that Dokey has Golden (looks like Rapunzel) coming out this month. I will definitely be ordering that one in. It also looks like the publisher will be putting out a version of Snow White by a different author (Snow by Tracy Lynn).

I have always loved these kinds of retellings, because fairy tales are such good stories, that they make for great novels. Beauty Sleep is no exception. Aurore is born in a kingdom where magic is commonplace, and so the spells that have been cast on her are not that unusual, really. But she grows up to be unusual in other ways. Her parents encourage her curiosity about the outside world, thinking that it will make her less vulnerable once she turns sixteen. However, once that time does come, various catastrophes befall the kingdom, forcing Aurore to flee to the nearby enchanted forest. I think if I say much more it'll spoil the story, so I'll leave it at that. But this truly is a great version. Aurore is a real girl, and not at all the fussy princess that you might imagine. Dokey's plot twists are so well done, that when Aurore does find true love, its not at all where you were expecting it to be.

Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey
ISBN 074342221X
187 pages