While Beauty Slept

This is a great book! It's an extremely creative book and very well written. The characters were believable and complex, even while being archetype.

The story is told by a great grandmother (Elise) once she hears her great granddaughter tell the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. She proceeds to recount the real story behind the fairy tale and it is fantastic.

So many fairy tales or books that give a different account of the fairy tale, they are full of magic and unbelievable details. While Beauty Slept thankfully isn't. It's a creative account of how the fairy tale could have come to pass.

I highly recommend this book to those who like a good story, a well written book, and enjoy surprises and trying to figure things out. Just remember the time period and setting (fictional as it may be). Women are not well taken care of and are treated as objects, so there are some inappropriate relations in the novel.

It's on my list of favorite books and I hope Blackwell writes more novels like this one!