Kalynn Bayron is quickly becoming one of my favourite YA authors, and this book is a stunning example of why. Her take on Snow White is interesting and was written in a way that even when I knew how the story traditionally went, I was surprised by the way that the plot went, and it was so exciting to read, especially once the actions that we recognize from the fairytale really began. The writing was so visceral, and the slightly uncertain note to the story being truly wrapped up made it feel more like an upgraded fairytale than anything. Honestly, I would probably read about Bayron’s interpretation of just about every fairytale, and I think that SLEEP LIKE DEATH combines several types of fantasy to make a book that was definitely worth the read.

I’m honestly not sure what I was expecting going into this book, but once we truly got into the action I was hooked. The first part of the book, while interesting and fun to read, wasn’t as entrancing as the last 3/4ths but I think that’s more about me starting a new book than anything. Eve’s character was so interesting and I feel like you almost could have read an entire other book exploring her and more of the world that was built around Queen’s Bridge. The structure of the story is a little untraditional to some fantasy, but Eve’s story carries through into a more traditional arc.

As far as characters go though, my favourites were definitely the Kingfishers and I wish I could say more about them, but I don’t want to spoil something so just know they’re great! I really just loved how Bayron took elements of Snow White and created a different story in the tradition of the original, and how the characters were able to generally have nuance even in shorter times on the page. I look forward to any potential fairy tales she tackles in the future!

What a clever twist to Snow White!!! In many ways Sleep Like Death is very similar yet it still stands in a lane of its own. Not gonna lie this book gave me bursts of excitement when I was able to put different clues together. I also love how the author wove a few other fairytales into the mix like with the Knight. I kept thinking I know this character from something else then by the end of the book it all made sense.

Now of all the characters one of my favorite was Grump if stay ready was a person it would definitely be him. I loved Eve’s character too she was stubborn at times but also very brave. Holding magical powers with the ability to conjure weapons from her surroundings and a gift for communicating with animals. She trained her whole life to take down the Knight and would stop at nothing until that destiny was fulfilled. There are so many things I could and want to say about this book but I’ll keep my spoilers for now. I honestly feel like the author did a fantastic job with this one and I hope everyone enjoys reading it too. Special thanks to @coloredpagesbt @kalynnbayron  @bloomsburybooksus for my #gifted copy!!!

Kalynn Bayron stuns again with Sleep Like Death! I just absolutely adore every book she writes. Sleep Like Death is incredible and absolutely unputdownable. This “Snow White” reimagining takes the original version of meek and mild Snow White to badass and fierce Eve. Bayron is a master storyteller and that shows in her writing.

Sleep Like Death is one of Kalynn Bayron's best books yet. Her elevated writing, the fascinating world, and the way she plays with the tropes of Snow white to create something utterly rich and familiar is the kind of thing you can only get from this author. I can't wait to read her next one!

Kalynn Bayron has always been an auto-buy author for me, so when I heard that she was doing a Snow White retelling, I jumped at the chance to read it!

I was hooked from the first page and could not put this down. There is just something about Bayron’s writing that feels so immersive and I just get lost in the stories. It was everything that I had hoped for and more!

This is a MUST read if you love:

🍏 Books that you can devour in one sitting

🍎 Damsels getting themselves out of distress

🍏 All of the Once Upon a Time vibes

🍎 Happily Ever Afters

Thank you so much to Bloomsbury YA and NetGalley for this eARC. All opinions are my own.

I loved Cinderella is Dead and really hoped this one would be just as great. Unfortunately, it just didn't work for me. The characters didn't feel developed enough, nor did the story. Really disappointing.

thank you so much to netgalley and colored pages blog tours for the early copy in exchange for an honest review!!!

yeah no, i still can't believe how i read this in a day 😱😱
it started really slow but once the Knight came to be and started to learn more about our horrible villain i couldn't stop, even if i wanted to. it reads like a real YA, with the MC very stubborn and convinced she can take him, but the way she keeps making mistakes and realizing she needs to stop and think before she acts it's something that really got me. every single side character had my heart, when the retelling aspect started playing out i could only hope that they would be okey. and then there is Nova, who i wasn't expecting at all but it made me smile with his snarky comments that infuriated Eve and made me swoon. i just adored it so much, it consumed my thoughts during the day because i needed to know how it would play it. i gasped out loud SO MANY TIMES because i didn't expect most of the twists. and i adored how it connects with other fairytales, now i really wanna grab Cinderella is dead because this one was my first read of the author, and i'm sure it won't be the last one.
adored it so much, definitely a new fave 💜💜

Wow….. this was so amazing that I cant even put it into words!
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Bayron was a phenomenal YA read that gripped me from the beginning.
From the beginning, I was hooked on this story and these characters that I was so obsessed with.
There was plenty of action in here and I loved the twists at the end of the book.
I love this author and her writing is so wonderful.

Thank You NetGalley and Bloomsbury YA for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

This book was so good. I loved it. The characters were dynamic, and you could see the struggles of being a teenager or the struggles with a mother figure and how this affects their own growth and development. This book had me laughing and crying and screaming. It does such a great job with affecting the emotions. an amazing world with an amazing main character that is dynamic.

Thanks to Bloomsbury USA Children's Books and NetGalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was pretty disappointing, to be honest. It started out strong but all these uninteresting side characters bogged it down. I wish the protagonist used her OP magic more often.

Also thought it was hilarious how people STILL kept making deals with the Knight despite all of his deals turning into crap. "I want to be the best singer in the land!" Gets turned into a bird. Literally everyone knows about these bad deals and STILL makes them. I thought everyone in the book was an idiot--especially the arrogant protagonist who kept getting most side characters dead. Not a very enjoyable read.

Sleep Like Death is an enchanting, introspective story about fairytales–specifically Snow White. It doesn’t stop there though. Somehow it seamlessly weaves several other fairy tales into the mix. Intricately twisting them so they are reminiscent of the tales we’ve heard as children but different–at their cores the overall “lesson” is the same though. I would have never seen how ANY of these fairytales could be worked into one story and still be so amazing. Kalynn Bayron has done one of my favorite fairytale retellings hands down. I can’t wait to see what else she comes up with. I would read this again in a heartbeat.

Kalynn Bayron has taken another classic fairy tale and reimagined it in a way that has injected new life into it while still feeling familiar. The story of Eve and The Knight will captivate you and have you burning through the pages. As with Cinderella is Dead, the pacing here is excellent. There’s never a dull moment. The characters are fully realized and the villain feels terrifying and dangerous.
I couldn’t put it down. Read it!

I love really enjoyed all the other Kaylnn Bayron books I've read. Unfortunately Sleep Like Death isn't one of them. I tried several times to get into and eventually had to walk away.
Still giving a middle rating of 3 stars due to enjoying her other books.

Sleep Like Death is a retelling with a Black female MC, which is all I needed to request this book. Eve is a gifted and skilled warrior that is able to use the elements around her. This is a coming of age story with a fantastical, gothic element.

The characters and the world that Bayron has created were captivating and fascinating. Eve is brought up in a mostly sheltered world but stand tall and isn't afraid to speak her mind or go against the grain.

While I enjoyed the characters and this world, there isn't much about this story that I would consider it a Snow White retelling. There are some magical elements that I wish had more explanation/understanding. While Eve is a strong character, she comes off as selfish and always putting others at risk- which was very frustrating as a reader. The pacing was somewhat off as well, as some parts of the story were very faced paced and others were not only slow, but boring.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for allowing me to read this ARC. My opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this book! I have always enjoyed Kalynn Bayron’s work and her incredible commitment to inclusion and diversity. This is by far my favorite of hers. The fairytale retellings were set up nicely with Cinderella is Dead, but this story took that so much further and I cannot wait to see what comes next. There were some twists I really did not see coming, and others I was able to guess at but was still surprised by the execution. One of the best retellings I have ever read.

Eve, is a strong and determined heroine on a mission to defeat an ancient monster known as the Knight. She has unique abilities to communicate with animals and conjure weapons from nature, Eve faces the challenge of saving her family and kingdom from the Knight’s corrupt deals.

I enjoyed the storyline and found Eve to be a realistic and relatable teenager, marked by moments of defiance and frustration. The writing in this book is stronger than Barron's previous works, with a well-crafted setting and atmosphere that adds a touch of grimdark to the narrative. Overall, this was a fun and engaging read, showcasing Barron's growth as an author.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC for this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

I didn't like this story as much as I hoped. DON'T GET ME WRONG, I ADORED EVE AND NOVA. The plot itself too wasn't bad until literally the epilogue. I don't know why but the epilogue just felt WRONG to me. Almost forced in a way with how different fairytales (unrelated to the original Snow White story) were brought up. I think I would have liked it more if it had stuck a little closer to the original plot. I didn't need a reason as to why The Knight was the way he was and I also really don't believe that he'd leave a loophole in Nova's curse the way he did. I enjoyed Cinderella is Dead SO MUCH (and I don't even like Cinderella) so I hoped I'd feel the same about this novel and I don't unfortunately. I also really didn't like that two specific characters died (I think they were the only ones who did if I'm not mistaken). Their deaths only served as plot devices to move Eve into action which was really sad. I also thought that the father of the first person would seek revenge from Eve. Based off her last interaction with him, I thought he was going to go to the Knight and wish for something terrible but nothing happened. Maybe in the final copies everything is wrapped up better though.

This would have been a great novella. It had the story beats of a novella but it was stuffed with a whole lot of nothing. Scenes dragged, characters had the same conversations over and over, the banter between the FMC and MMC was stiff and their chemistry was nonexistent, 30% of the book is seemingly spent traveling from one place to another but there’s nothing particularly relevant about the act of traveling.

Bayron writes movement/action (her horror books and short stories are a great example!) and mother-daughter relationships (This Poison Heart) so well but this book only skimmed the surface. It felt like we were told (instead of shown) Eve’s close relationship with her mother and expected to be shocked when everything fell apart. The stuff with the “who is the fairest in the land” came out of left field because we just didn’t understand their relationship beyond what Eve told us in exposition (and even Eve was confused by mom’s supposed vanity).

It just felt so surface level, and I’m lowkey devastated.

The beginning of this book was very slow. In fact it was choppy and disjointed. The writing style in all honesty is not for me, there were a lot of very short cut off sentences that felt very jarring. I didn’t quite get the Snow White vibes, or maybe I just haven’t read enough retellings? This was my first retelling and in all honesty it might not be the type of stories for me. Decent enough book but I wasn’t in love with it. And it was an adult book I think but Eve was much more YA in nature. Very impulsive and immature.

I sadly didn’t enjoy this one as much as I was hoping to. I normally love retellings, but I wish it would have stuck to just one story. I felt like the author kept randomly adding in other fairytales all the way until the very end and it started to feel a little pointless. I also felt like the characters made a lot of less than intelligent decisions which made them unlikable and led to unnecessary tragedies. The magic system also wasn’t really explained much and the romance sadly didn’t do it for me either.

I don’t want this review to sound entirely negative - it was a fast paced easy read and it was redeemed a little with some of the side characters, namely Claude and his family. I do think there are people who would enjoy this, like maybe younger readers.

Thank you to Bloomsbury for the ARC!