Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a treasure! This book did a stunning job on worldbuilding and writing, but I felt like some of the characters were annoyingly bratty and almost unlikeable. Other than that, the author did a marvelous job with this book, and I definitely recommend this book if you enjoy fantasy/fairytale retellings or books about siblings.

I thought this was such a great retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty fairytale. I love the twist that the story is from the sister's preceptive. Briony is the younger sister that everyone forgets about. All everyone cares about is her older sister Rosalin. The one who is cursed. On the eve of Rosalin's sixteenth birthday she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel she and anyone else in the castle will sleep for 100 years. When Briony wakes up she feels that something is a miss. When everyone else wakes and the prince is in the castle they must find a way to fight the Thronwood outside the castle and try to defeat the Fairy Queen. I loved how the story went and the ending of it.

Thornwood is a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty Fairytale from the point of view of the younger sister. It is a very average book. I gave it three stars. The older sister is supposed to 16, which is not delt with at all as still being very young, and any attempt to give the younger sister agency is undermined by the treatment of the older one. She is also rather unbearable. Everyone reads a bit flat, and the ending feels rushed. The epilogue is stuck on and feels really, really rushed. It is hard to comment more without spoilers but there would be a lot more adjustment in reality. The main character is spunky and there is adventure and fairies so there will be middle schoolers who enjoy this book but I personally would not recommend it with so many other better fairytale retellings out there.

I received an advance copy of, Thornwood, by Leah Cypress. I did not enjoy this book or the characters. Others might.

Teenager Briony has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful but cursed older sister, Rosalin. The rest of the world knows Rosalin as Sleeping Beauty, but they don’t know the rest of the story. What happens when Prince Charming turns out to be, well, not what was expected. It’s up to Briony and a newfound friend to uncover the truth and save everyone in the castle from being doomed forever. Is she up to the task? Find out in this story of Sleeping Beauty like you’ve never read before.

I really enjoyed this version of Sleeping Beauty. The twists and turns that it took were perfect to make it an original story.

Semi-gothic Sleeping Beauty retelling for the upper elementary or middle school set told by Sleeping Beauty's poorly regarded little sister, Briony. It's an interesting take and a tight little fantasy novel, but the frankly unbelievable dismissal of Briony by every courtier and servant beggars belief (she's still a princess, after all, in a feudal world where such things mattered). The introduction of Edwin, a serf reviled by his community but later revealed to be atypically brilliant, was intended to mirror Briony's experience but was never explained fully or developed in any way. I urge readers to push beyond the initial chapters that overly focus on personal hurts and grudges as they eventually give way to a solid adventure story.

I'm not really sure how to feel about this book. I'm a huge fan of fairy tale retellings. There are some retellings that make the main character of the original tales sympathetic. There are other retellings where the fairy tale hero was secretly bad, or unpleasant and the hero is actually someone else. This books seems to try to go for both with Rosalin (Sleeping Beauty). At times Briony implies that Rosalin cares a lot about her. At other times it seems like Rosalin is just bullying her for no reason. I get that sibling relationships have moments of friendship and moments of fighting, but Rosalin's inconsistency just made me dislike her. On the other hand, I didn't like Briony that much either. She just seems perpetually annoyed with everyone.