I was really excited about this one, but the characters and the writing style just did not agree with me. They both felt awkward and I wasn’t able to get past 25%.

I really wanted to like this. The idea is so great! Why shouldn't Sleeping Beauty have had adventures in other worlds while she was waiting for her prince? Why shouldn't she earn her happy ending like most people have to?

Sadly, the execution is a mixed up mess. Bitsy meets a lot of people in her dream world, but it's tough to see how they fit into the narrative or move the story on. Since we're always in her head, we only know what she thinks of them, and it's difficult to get a real handle on anyone. I really did want to like this, but it's too mixed up and confusing.

However, the idea is clever, and some of the characters are really good. I think Andrea could be a wonderful writer; this book didn't suit me, but I'll be looking out for more by her, because she does have a brilliant imagination and I'm interested to see what else she comes up with in the future.

What I liked about the book:
1. I typically don’t like first person point of view, but Bitsy made it work well. Furthermore, I love when characters break the fourth wall! It’s hilarious on TV, it’s hilarious in movies, and its hilarious in books. Sorry, that is just never going to be not funny to me.

I loved the crazy world she traveled to and that it DIDN’T make sense! It wasn’t supposed to! This is an alternate reality not dissimilar from Wonderland.

2. I liked all the big, cartoony characters and how different everyone was. You didn’t know who she could trust, and that kept it fascinating.

I especially loved Peregrine and wanted them to be endgame! He was so cunning and vicious, but gentle with her when it counted. I loved their back and forth and really thought they were the only ones who would be able to appreciate each other at their bests and handle each other at their worsts.

3. I loved the mythology running through this world about “the one who fell from the sky”. I also really liked her character development throughout most of this going from a princess who sneaks away from tough situations to a fighter.

What could have been better:
1. There was a lot of unnecessary filler. That made it drag at a lot of points which made it hard to keep going sometimes.

2. I hated that ending. It was anticlimactic, wiped away all character development for her, and was not what I wanted or what we DESERVED!

3. Her father’s journal entries definitely served a purpose, but they also stagnated the flow anytime they showed up. I dreaded seeing that different font.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins Children’s Books, HarperTeen, and Andrea Portes for the ARC. The opinions expressed above are honest and my own.

DNF at 40%. I like the premise, but the direction it took from there was strange and nonsensical. It couldn’t keep my attention, and it seems I’m not alone here.

3.25 stars

I was prepared to really hate or really love this book based on the reviews, but man was this bizarre. This is a Sleeping Beauty retelling but felt crossed with Alice in Wonderland and with some Wizard of Oz thrown in for good measure.

Bitsy is a princess who's criticized for her plain appearance and intelligence, both of which are really getting in the way of her marriage prospects. Independent thought? Total dealbreaker.

After doing the requisite finger-pricking on a spindle thing, Bitsy is dropped into another world, where some beings are heralding her as their prophesied savior while others want to kill her. She travels between cities, meeting various eccentric people and experiencing progressively stranger cultures as she goes. The way this portion of the story is written reminded me a lot of The Princess Bride or Monty Python and the Holy Grail--it was intentionally zany, and a lot of fun to read because I had no idea what was going to happen next. There were some hilarious elements of satire and lines showing the story wasn't taking itself too seriously, which I really appreciated.

It was the ending of this book that really threw me for a loop. Part of me appreciates how "WTF" it was, but I wish that the resolution itself had played out over more than a few pages to give me time to process the reveals as they came. It felt so abrupt as it was that I had to reread it a couple of times because I was so thrown off. I enjoyed this author's voice a lot and would be curious about other books from her, but I don't know if I'll ever know how to feel about the end of this one.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, & the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Creeping Beauty enticed me with the beautiful cover and Sleeping Beauty is one of my favourite Fairy Tales so I was excited to see how it would unfold with a re-telling.

Unfortunately this book failed to meet expectations, it had a few references such as the spindle but that itself seemed to be thrown in for the sake of it but ultimately this was a miss match of a bunch of different Fairy Tales which didn't work.

The book felt more appropriate to Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass as Princess Bitsy (yes that's really her name) falls into a different world after pricking her finger which sets off her slumber.

The characters weren't very interesting and it felt like the author was trying too hard to add as many Fairy Tale elements as possible.

Unfortunately this book struggled to maintain my interest but I did like that the chapters were quite short

This book was very hard to follow for me and i did not enjoy the first person POV that author provided for Bitsy. I unfortunately did not enjoy this one.

On paper, a read that I was hugely interested in. In reality - I just couldn't get on with this book. Pacing was off and many of the characters continually came across as annoying and cold.

DNF @ 54 % :/

Thank you so much for the opportunity to review this book. Unfortunately this storyline fell a bit flat for me and I had a hard time connecting with the FMC Bitsy, she felt rather one dimensional for me and while I felt this story had a lot of potential in the beginning…. it started to feel a bit rushed and messy for me towards 30-40%. I will be keeping my review private and only with you here vs. posting a lower review on public platforms. Again I thank you so much for this opportunity, I adore a fairytale retelling, but this felt like a case of right book wrong person.

I feel so bad rating this one as an DNF. I have loved every single book that Portes has put out but this one was a total fail for me. I felt that the story was trying to be something that it just wasn't. And I just didn't care about the characters or the plot. The start of the book was amazing but the rest of it was just nope.

Bitsy is a plain, bookish princess that chafes at the role that being a princess means. Being forced to smile, curtsy, and go along with everything that is expected of a princess, even if its all too small and narrow minded for her dreams. So when her father wants to marry her off to a fat, boorish prince... she runs and makes a wish on a spindle standing alone in the furthest tower.

That was quite the convoluted little rabbit hole that the author sends you down. As Bitsy traverses her dream she comes across quite a few unsavory characters and events that lead her on towards this new destiny. Sometimes you think you know where this story is going, only to have everything go sideways. Sometimes you applaud the main character for having an inspired moment of growth and sometimes she seems to take a step back.

The world building was interesting. Both the magical fairy tale la la land of pastels that are her real world and the dark, somewhat twisted world that she lands in. I did feel that some of the characters that she should have had a deeper connection to seemed a bit shallow, like you should take it at face value that they become friends without understanding why. I'm also not quite sure how I feel about the ending, tbh.

Thank you to Harper360YA for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Bitsy is no one’s ideal princess. She’s heard it all: that it’s a shame she’s so plain, so lacking in grace. That the best thing for her to do is simply wait (and wait some more), and hope some prince will grant her a happy ending. Then Bitsy pricks her finger on a spindle and falls down, down, down. Into a world where cutthroats and con artists are more common than curtsies. Where no one ages and everyone is beautiful. Where an inscrutable evil rests at its core. A land where Bitsy’s fate and her future are solely in her own hands—and neither are what she expects.

Bitsy is an incredibly annoying narrator. She’s pretty much a spoiled brat, complaining about everything she must do as princess to a kingdom. She constantly contradicts herself and feels incredibly immature. Her POV is unreliable to read from in my eyes because she’s incredibly contradictory of herself - “Oh I’ll do this for my kingdom” and then ten seconds later, “I won’t do it. Why should I?” I don’t entirely like the choice of name Bitsy. Considering her full name is Elizabeth, there are various other variations the author could have chosen but they decided Bitsy was the way forward. Sure, it’s unique but it’s also very childish sounding and I cannot imagine a king and queen calling their heir something so immature in front of supposed suitors.

I eventually DNF’d this story at 41%. I really pushed through hoping it would get better but I was simply disinterested and utterly baffled at what was going on. We kept jumping from event to event with no in between, the characters had no substance to them and the plot felt so all over the place that I was permanently lost. I know how hard writing a book is and I always feel guilty for not liking a book, and even more so when I can’t finish a book. But this story really does not do it for me. I needed world-building, I needed characters of substance, I needed a likeable MC so that reading through their eyes would not feel like a chore. This book sadly does not deliver.

Overall, Creeping Beauty is a book that I feel could use some more work to make it interesting.

0/5⭐️

Thank you again to Harper360YA for an advanced copy of this book. Review will be live on my blog on release day.

So this book was one I was looking forward to jumping into. Taking one of my favorite fairytales and twisting it up into a fantastical retelling sounded magical.

Somehow this fell short. I didn’t connect with the characters and the juvenile at times writing left me wanting more from the editors and perhaps the author.

The concept is there and I know the story can follow. I truly can’t wait to read this author in the future because they obviously have a lot of talent.

This is an interesting read but not in a good way. I just didn't vibe with this story. There are a lot of little things in this book that bothered me. Just not my taste.

I really liked Creeping Beauty's cover, but the rest? Unfortunately not so much. This was just not for me

I was excited for this because there are not too many sleeping beauty retellings out there. But the writing was chaotic, and not in a good way. It felt very underdeveloped and in need of more editing. I DNF'ed at 30% because I could not physically read any more

Wonderful fantasy book with a twist. Written well and loved the storyline. Had me hooked from the first chapter till the end.

This was the first ARC that I’ve read, and I appreciate NetGalley granting me this ARC. I wanted to like it so badly; I thought the idea of the book was so great, but oh my goodness, the execution of it was not good. This was like as if Sleeping Beauty, Alice and Wonderland, and the Wizard of Oz had a baby. There was wayyy too much going on for this book, too many weird plot lines. As if the book couldn’t decide where it wanted to go. The writing style was also strange, it would go from 1st person to 2nd person randomly and I just couldn’t get on board with it. Hurts my heart to say this, but I DNFed this book at 47%; I tried to get through it, but just couldn’t.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, mostly because it is a retelling of one of my favourite fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty. However I found it to be very chaotic, and written as if a child had written it. The beginning chapters made no sense and was very confusing.

2.5 Stars

If you are looking for an eclectic read that will have you puzzled and a little curious, this is for you.

Creeping Beauty is marketed as a feminist retelling of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty. While there are many female characters in positions of power, this did not feel like a feminist read. The idea is there and there are many pieces that could have given this a more feminist lean, but it wasn’t executed well.

Bitsy, our “sleeping beauty”, is constantly referred to as plain or even unattractive in comparison to everyone in the kingdom. At the same time, Bitsy is kind of arrogant. She knows multiple languages, can play instruments, and mocks the stupidity and absurd behaviors of other characters. And yet, she is keenly aware of the injustices of her society and wants to be an agent of change. Bitsy admires her mother for her beauty, her composure, and her ability to handle almost any situation, but her mother is a traditional woman rooted in old fashioned ways of ruling. She does things simply because it’s how they have always been. While Bitsy makes a few offhand comments about maybe making changes when she becomes queen, there’s no real fire behind her words. Only when Bitsy is thrust into this other world and witnesses true atrocities does she realize how sheltered she’s been. Even then, her sense of agency and urgency for the most part is only to save herself. Without serious push from other stronger female characters, she likely wouldn’t have even attempted to become a leader or to save the people from countless injustices.

Bitsy gets herself in several horrible situations due to her naiveté. She has a haughty air about her that she’s clever and knowledgable, but is constantly making the worst decisions and somehow, miraculously escaping from them by suddenly having a skill that she has always had but the reader wasn’t aware of-like being a good swimmer or a horseback rider, etc. It’s hard to believe. At the same time, she’s not an unlikable character. Bitsy has a strong character voice that is engaging, if a little immature, and has a fun way of drawing the reader in. While Bitsy does get braver, there’s not a ton of real character growth, it’s more like she’s thrust into her circumstances and just wings it.

Speaking of character voice, Bitsy breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader on multiple occasions. This was a strange choice, but I think it’s part of the reason why I kept reading. Initially, the whole absurdity of the secondary characters, Bitsy’s very young personality, and the odd choice of beginning with the King’s journal almost made me put this book down. I was intrigued by the storyline and sometimes the scenes were so strange that it compelled me to keep going just to see what kind of disaster would happen next.

The King’s journals. The story is separated into 3 parts. The King’s journal leads each section. It was puzzling to me why, if you’re telling a feminist-centered Sleeping Beauty retelling, you would begin with a male POV. It serves a purpose, sure, to add a bit of mystery, forboding, and foreshadowing of the plot twist, but it conflicted with the overarching purpose of taking back Sleeping Beauty and giving Bitsy power to control her own life.

Each of the kingdoms are intriguing. They have their own unique ways of life, color schemes, and ideologies. There’s slavery, drugs, violence, and a repulsive sort of feeling to those who thrive in the upper classes.

I just feel like there could have been more. More development. More plot. More depth. Much of this story was so surface value that the purpose of the story didn’t really hit home. It felt like these were just glimpses into the characters and world-building.

Peregrine might have been the the most complex character, with the most depth and internal conflict. He was witty, fun, had great banter, but was also struggling with the expectations of his world. I wish there would have been more exploration and delving into his character and relationship to Bitsy. If not for romance, for friendship.

This book was hard to rate. On one hand, it grew on me. The more I read, the more enjoyable it became. But I couldn’t help but wonder what it could have been with more development. And that sense of yearning is what left me feeling unsatisfied.