Friday, May 13, 2016

Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell


Title: Once Upon a Dream
Author: Liz Braswell
Series: A Twisted Tale #2
Publisher: Disney Press
Publication Date: April 5, 2016
Source: Irish Banana Blog Tours

A retelling of a fairy tale!  A retelling of a fairy tale!  If you follow my reviews, you already know that I love fairy tale retellings.  Love, love, love them!

So of course I was super excited to get my hands on Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell.  A retelling of the ever popular Sleeping Beauty story.

However, as retellings usually go, this is not the story as you know it.  But instead of Aurora waking up when the prince kisses her, he falls fast asleep too!

Then all of a sudden we are with the princess again in the castle.  Maleficent is ruling.  The world outside the castle is dangerous and everyone in the castle is trapped inside for their own safety.  The king and queen have been locked down in the dungeon and Princess Aurora is treated kindly.

Then weird things start to happen and Aurora starts to get confused.  And the story really starts happening.

So much fun!

First, just let me say that Once Upon a Dream was actually a lot darker than I thought it would be.  I thought it was going to be pretty light hearted, but it wasn't.  It got deep.  It got dark.  Sometimes it got a little ugly.  I am not disappointed in this at all, I was just surprised.

As far as the characters went.  I thought they were okay.  I would have liked a little bit more development in them.  There were quite a few places that I felt they went a little flat.  But for the most part, I think the main characters were done okay.  They each had their little moments.

I thought the premise of the over all story line was actually pretty clever and I really enjoyed this spin on the original story.  That being said though, there wasn't much to keep me going when I was reading.  I kept putting the book down.  It wasn't that the book was bad, but I just wasn't drawn in enough.  I wanted a little more to it.  I wanted to feel closer to the characters, I wanted some more action, a little more depth than I was given.  I mainly continued reading this story because I wanted to know how Liz Braswell ended this twist.

This all being said, I still plan to read other retellings that come from the mind of Liz Braswell.  Once Upon a Dream showed me a really cool twist on Sleeping Beauty that I never even thought of as a possibility.

My Rating
3.5 Stars


This review is based on an ARC received from the publisher through Irish Banana Blog Tours in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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