Friday, September 30, 2011

A Long, Long Sleep

by Anna Sheehan
Somerville, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2011.

Rosalinda Samantha Fitzroy wakes up from stasis to find a boy with his lips on hers. Okay, it's not exactly like Sleeping Beauty because stasis froze her body, and he thought she wasn't breathing. But she's been asleep for over sixty years: her parents are dead, her world has changed, and she is the heiress to an interplanetary company, UniCorp. She has to learn to cope with this world as well as learn what has happened in her absence.

I picked this book up entirely because of the cover. It's mostly white, with a roses and thorns in shades of pink, on the front, back, and even the spine. Very eye-catching and attractive, even when it's on a shelf amongst other books, and it led me to believe this would be a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It's not. Instead, this is Rose's story of coping after waking, and we find out bits and pieces of what happened to her before, and what's changed in the world. In the beginning, it confused me to keep threads of the story straight, as Rose's past and present are my world's future. Other times, like Rose's history class in school, information about what happened after she was put in stasis seemed to be a bit of an information dump. But Rose is a compelling character, and the mystery surrounding her circumstances is a compelling one. Though the story ends satisfactorily, it leaves some possibility open for a sequel, and I do hope that's the case.

No comments: