An interesting if somewhat uninspired retelling of sleeping beauty. Different but not enormously surprising in many ways. Bitsy, the Princess protagonist is not conventionally attractive, she is told this, she believes it. When she is whisked away under a curse into a deep sleep she ends up in a realm where to be ugly is a crime and to survive society you must drink a sapphire potion to increase your beauty.

The metaphors and meanings knock you over the head without much subtlety. And while I can’t think of another fairy tale retelling that’s gone this route exactly I also didn’t feel particularly hooked into the action and occasionally felt a little bored by the story.

Honestly I think I’d only recommend this if fairy tale retellings are truly a go-to read for you. It certainly wasn’t bad story wise, the writing was pretty good. It unfortunately just didn’t do too much beyond that for me.

Audio - (N/A) The file I was given access to was synthetically generated and therefore not the audiobook available for sale. The text translates well to relay the story aurally, as far as I could attest to, though the draft I listened to was understandably stiff.

This book starts with what the traditional Sleeping Beauty left off. It focuses on the time between pricking her finger on the spindle and when she wakes up. Bitsy finds herself in a foreign land, a land where you must be beautiful to hold power. If you are not beautiful, you are doomed to become a worker in the most dire of working conditions. Bitsy meets up with a con artist and she has a multitude of troubles in trying to return home. Meanwhile, her parents are trying everything to bring her back.
Opinion
I never thought to wonder what Sleeping Beauty was doing while in her slumber. This fantastical tale lead me down a twisted path that circles on itself. It wasn't until the end that I saw how everything connected together.
At times in the book, I found myself lost. I think though, that the book was so well thought out, with clues carefully given, that if I were to go back and reread, I would be surprised by how much of the book makes sense the second time around.
Overall, even with my confusion, I found this a wonderful take on an old fairy tale.
Many thanks to Net Galley and to Harper Audio for providing me with an ARC of this book.

First off, I listened to the synthetic voiced preview addition and I giggled every time “Harper Collins” popped up in the background like a hype bro!

I really enjoyed this fairy tale adaptation/retelling. It will be amazing with a narrator that can add feeling into the audiobook. Even with the synthetic voice narration, *I felt things*!

I loved the FMC and MMC. She is feisty and determined. The male MMC is just rude enough that I immediately hope this leads to enemies to lovers and a happily ever after. While the king (FMC’s father) isn’t an overt villain, I still found myself greatly disliking him. More please! I love books where I find myself actually getting angry on behalf of the characters!

While I could see my middle school daughter being interested in this book, it wasn’t for me. , Bitsy, as a character is…okay, but could definitely use more depth. Where’s the romance? The chemistry? I got this Audiobook early from Netgalley.

This is a Sleeping Beauty retelling, but it almost read more like Alice In Wonderland. Our princess, Bitsy in an attempt to escape a suitor, pricks her finger on a spindle and wakes up in a different world. In this world she has short, strange interactions with many different characters that do not make much sense to her. The longer she stays in the world, the more she learns about the evil governing force called The Wraith who is oppressing all of the people. They band together to take down The Wraith, and Bitsy is faced with a hard decision.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. However, the writing seemed so immature. The dialogue was comical not because it was funny, but because nobody would converse that way. The descriptions were so repetitive (if I heard her world described as baby blues and pinks one more time I was going to DNF). Bitsy as a character was boring. The only character I kind of liked was Count Peregrine, but his relationship was Bitsy didn't make any sense. Quite honestly, I have no idea what the actual point of her whole journey into the dream world was. The author obviously left the ending open to a second book, but I will not be picking it up.

This book could have been good which is why I’m rating it 2 stars instead of 1. The characters were bland, two-dimensional. The narration was horrific. It’s 8 hours of my life I’m certainly never getting back.

And please? Who writes a fairy tale retelling without romance? It almost felt like it was going to be a queer romance but in the end, everything was inconsequential. The more I think about this book, the angrier I get and the more I want to change my rating.

Creeping Beauty is a Sleeping Beauty retelling. I did enjoy the way the story was interpreted. I listened to it in one sitting, but it was super predictable. That isn't necessarily a bad thing in a book made for kids, I know my middle schoolers like being able to predict what is happening next and get upset if they are wrong. So this works. It is a short story that moved at a pretty good pace which is also something my kids want. I did enjoy it, but I don't know that I will be continuing the series.

3 stars

DNF @30%

I think I gave this more than a fair chance. Usually if I'm not into a story by 20% I know I won't enjoy the rest of the book.

I received the "audio" of Creeping Beauty on Netgalley. Apparently, it's not an actual audiobook, it's a "mechanized synthesized voice recording". So essentially, it's a half-step up from having Siri read for you.

There really wasn't anything I enjoyed. The sentence structures, characters, even the world didn't draw me in and bothered me.

The cover is pretty, and maybe and very young adult may enjoy this as a starter fantasy/retelling but this one isn't for me. I struck out hard with this one.

I think this book is a classic situation in which the idea is great, but the execution lacks substance. The concept of a Sleeping Beauty story in which the Sleeping Beauty, Bitsy in this case, is actually the main character is different and empowering. Usually the title character is too busy sleepy to actually make much of an impact on the story, which reeks of helplessness and damsel in distress. I appreciate a retelling in which Sleeping Beauty takes center stage, and we actually know what's going on behind the magic shrouding her in sleep.

This is that story. We actually get to know what she's doing in there. The only problem is, what is the point? The "it was all a dream" thing is for your fourth-grade writing assignment, not a full-on novel because, again, if it was a dream, does any of it really matter? The end did not clear that up either.

As far as world-building, I didn't think there was enough on either end (real world or dream world) -- or at least enough that made sense. I think this book had so much potential, and I don't think the writing itself is that bad, but the plot and character development is pretty poor.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I really like the cover of the book. I usually LOVE fairytale retellings. The description and the cover make me request this book. But I was very disappointed with this one. I rarely stop reading/listen to a book even if I not into it much but I can't with this one.

I really don't like the writing of this book, the characters, but I like the idea of it. The writing changes too much.

Thank you for the advanced copy

I enjoyed how the author took a classic kids story and gave it a twist to get younger adults interested in reading. This would be very interesting to me if they made this into a show or a movie, similar to what NBC did for Grimm.

This story had a lot of potential, but with the popularity of retellings and the amount of new stories coming out, an author has to be right on point to make a lasting work. This tale is just not there. The is a Sleeping Beauty retelling with an Alice in Wonderland feel to me. The worlds were pretty well done and the storyline, for the most part, was easy to follow. The characters were a major hit to the story. Bitsy, like her name, acted so young for her age and there was often a lot of juvenile choices that were made. For a young adult book, that has some definitely adult situations, it was a very off-putting character to follow. The ending was also greatly unsatisfying as it just kinda...happens. It was too clean and quick for my liking, especially after such an arduous journey.

The voice narration was a bit too robotic for this fantasy tale and definitely needs some grammar lessons as pauses and character distinctions are hard to decipher. The switching between Bitsy and her father was seamless, leaving listeners very confused at times until they can take in some context.

While the concept of this book was one that appealed to me, the writing just did not live up to the expectations. The fairytale that inspired this retelling is my favorite, so I might have had to high of expectations for the story. This might be one that I give a second chance.

This book will be so much better with a real narrator, there is something very uncanny about the computer narration. The book however, is amazing. I love this retelling.

I wanted to rate this a 5. I came so close to rating this a 5, until it got to the ending.
For 05% of the book I was totally hooked. I didn't even mind the synthesized voice - in fact I was pretty impressed with it. I used the time spent cleaning to listen to the book, and it actually made me want to clean MORE just so that I could get back to listening to it. I loved the story, I loved the premise of the sheltered, naive princess finding her own story and her own strengths. Right up until the ending, which felt like it had just been hastily slapped together and stuck at the end. There were key bits in the ending that came completely out of the blue - not like "wow that was a twist" type of out of the blue, but more like things that had been left on a cutting room floor that really should have been included. The majority of the book was a 5/5 for me, the ending more like a 2 at the most. It left me feeling almost cheated, like I was missing the ending to the book I'd become so intrigued with and was given the ending to something else instead.

Unfortunately, I didn’t look closely enough at the listing for the audiobook before I selected to review it, and didn’t know it was a synthesized voice and not an actual narrator. I did get a small percentage of the way through the book to give it a chance, but a combination of the mediocre style and robo-voice made it unlistenable.

I enjoyed Creeping Beauty. It is imaginative and a fun perspective on a proncess story that usually gives the princess very little agency.
I was a bit put off by body size immediately being used for humor and fisgust.