Creeping Beauty
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Anatomy of a Misfit comes a subversive and feminist take on Sleeping Beauty, sure to appeal to fans of Damsel and To Kill a Kingdom.
The dark and deadly world of Heartless meets the empowering twist of Cruel Beauty in this thrilling, unpredictable, multigenre retelling of one of the most beloved fairy tales: where instead of falling asleep to await her prince, this sleeping beauty finally wakes up.
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.
What will she find in a world where fairy tales are nightmares?
A Twisted Sleeping Beauty Retelling: Instead of a gentle slumber, Bitsy is plunged into a deadly world where waking up is only the beginning of the nightmare.A Fiercely Feminist Fairy Tale: This princess doesn’t need a prince. Labelled "plain" and "lacking," Bitsy discovers her own strength when she’s forced to carve out her own future.Trapped in a Dangerous New World: A land of eternal beauty, ageless inhabitants, and cutthroat secrets lurks beneath the surface, ruled by an inscrutable evil.High-Stakes YA Adventure: From shadowy swamps to a decadent, cruel city, Bitsy’s journey is a non-stop fight for survival full of unexpected allies and deadly enemies.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this ambitious "Sleeping Beauty" retelling by Portes (This Is Not a Ghost Story), a princess falls into an enchanted sleep only to wake up in an alternate dimension. White-cued Princess Bitsy, 17, has perfected the art of creeping away from boring formal functions. After meeting her betrothed, whom she describes as a "well-tempered mushroom... a very large, nervous, sweaty one," she escapes into the depths of the castle, where she discovers a spindle. Pricking her finger sends her into a deep slumber—until she awakens stranded in a dangerous new reality in which one's looks determines their status ("Being ugly and poor... go hand in hand," a resident confirms), and the realm's impoverished citizens must mine a substance that enables its imbibers to remain artificially beautiful. Following a series of dreamlike events that force Bitsy to quickly adapt to the cutthroat world, she must challenge the realm's mysterious, tyrannical ruler if she hopes to survive and return home. Portes undermines the overarching theme of a heroine who rescues herself with late revelations and reframes, and interrogations of valuing physical appearance prove intriguing but underexplored. Ages 13–up.
