Title: Slumber
Author: Becky Bird
Pub. Date: August 1, 2019
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
A YA retelling of classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty
Prince Thomas cannot take the throne without a queen. Though the problem isn’t his lack of suitors but his refusal to marry a princess that is less than perfect.
The cardinal presents him with an opportunity: a quest to find the most beautiful princess in the land who has been in slumber for a century. But, unbeknown to the prince, the cardinal plans to kill him as soon as the prince embarks on his quest, and take the throne for himself.
Luckily, Prince Thomas’s path crosses with Lucy, a spirited orphan runaway, who saves his life and convinces the prince to continue the quest. When they eventually find Princess Aurora, they also find another contender – Prince Philip – vying for the princess’s heart.
Despite their mutual disdain for each other, Lucy agrees to assist the prince, and Thomas accepts her help to keep him alive long enough to beat out his competition and return to rule his kingdom alongside his perfect bride.
They just don’t count on falling for each other in the process.
This will be a spoiler free review and thank you NetGalley for providing a free copy for review!
I’ll be honest, I mainly downloaded this book as a quick read to help boost my NetGalley Reviewer Rating. The synopsis sounded cute and I figured that it would be a fun read that I could read quickly.
Well, it’s been sitting on my Kindle for about a month now, but I did happen to just read it in a matter of hours. I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would, especially when I started it. It’s been so long (or at least it feels like it’s been so long) since I’ve been able to read a book and really just enjoy it. I was anxiously trying to anticipate what was going to potentially happen next. My heart was never racing, trying to leave my chest. It was just this kind of heartwarming, ridiculously fun, take on Sleeping Beauty. The feel of the story reminded me of the movie version of Ella Enchanted. It doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Everything I’ve read lately has been a pretty fantastic read, but they’ve required a lot of brain power, mental gymnastics and all my emotions. Slumber was kind of the opposite in the best way possible. It’s just a book you can sit down and enjoy and not go through an emotional gauntlet with the characters.
As for the characters, they were pretty fun! Prince Thomas is the one who goes through so major character growth, Lucy is your typical badass YA fantasy heroine, and doesn’t conform with the stereotypical norms for women. Her friend Jack was the comedic relief and mediator and just a fun and bit of annoying character. Aurora and Phillip – well, you’ll just have to meet them.
This book definitely takes the classic Sleeping Beauty (at least the Disney version) and kind of flips it on its head. There’s also this sort of meta element to this book, which weirdly worked. It’s not super prevalent, but some of the characters hint at things.
OH! This is also an ‘enemies to lovers’ sort of story, and in my opinion, it was pretty well done. You can tell that even when they (vague for spoiler-y reasons!) are going at each other’s throats, that there’s chemistry beneath it all.
Overall, I really did enjoy this book! When I started my review, I was going to rate it a solid 3, but I have to bump it up. The more I think about it, the more I genuinely enjoyed this book and everything about it!
Writing The Universe 
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