Creeping Beauty: Fairy Tales Gone Bad

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I hated that ending. It was anticlimactic, wiped away all character development for her, and was not what I wanted or what we DESERVED! It was terrible. The end. 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. A land where Bitsy’s fate and her future are solely in her own hands—and neither are what she expects. The premise of this was more enjoyable than the book itself. A retelling of Sleeping Beauty crossed with Alice in Wonderland, this book promises a world-hopping adventure with a unique twist.

Ah well, this was such an odd book and hilarious. If you need a good laugh and are in the mood for a fantasy that’s a bit odd, quirky, funny with a bit of darkness sprinkled in there, then read it, it won’t hurt you. I’m sure it’s supposed to be all over the place, I mean Alice in Wonderland was!The pacing, pretty fast, I will say, but I think it may have been more me rushing through it to get to the end rather than because I wanted to see where the story would take me. She tried to make it funny and edgy and original and progressive. Unfortunately, none of those things actually worked.

Then we have Princess Elizabeth "Bitsy" Whatever her last name is, which really has to be some kind of bad joke because, Bitsy? Really? She is not like other princesses. She's plain and nerdy and has mastered the art of "creeping" (a word, that unfortunately, appears far too often in the book) so she can escape her dreadfully vain cousins to go read. She wants her servants to be her maids of honor and breaks the fourth wall because she's a modern woman trapped in a patriarchal society. I mean, Portes really tries to give Bitsy a distinct and unique voice. It just...doesn't work. Peregrine was a character that I did not like at all in the beginning and was like who and what he was going to be to Bitsy, but I really liked how his character came out more and more throughout the book. Now, the reason this is 3.5 ⭐️, leaning more towards 3 ⭐️…two things….first, the romance. What on earth! There was a very good romance going on there and I just have no words for how that never really happened or ended, it just fizzled out and left me disappointed, severely disappointed. But the ending…the ending is an open ending, and I do enjoy open endings, but the implication of this ending makes no sense! Bitsy goes from listening to her parents all the time, to being her own person, to allowing another person to influence her and to do what!? I won’t say what it is, but it makes no sense! This was seriously going to be a solid 4 ⭐️ until that ending and how the romance just never played out. I cannot express my disappointment in both of these situations, and I have great ideas as to how that could have turned out differently! Sign up for my mailing list to get a free RH spoof story that pokes fun at all the tired old tropes: Im sure with some more editing and a way of this book 'finding itself' the concept could be great but as it is, I just couldn't invest in it.

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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.

I thought that in the new world that it was a lot of information dumped on you right away and could have been spaced out. I love this world-wide myth of “the one who fell from the sky”. I also really enjoyed her personality development throughout this story, from a princess escaping difficult situations to becoming a warrior. Creeping Beauty is a wonderful creepy, gripping twisted fairy tale [...] Written in verse this book is funny, dark and you just won't want to put it down. - Little Blog of Library Treasures 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.I think because of the style of writing and tone some may not enjoy this one but for me it was certainly entertaining and one I did enjoy, especially with the elements of other fairy tales. I did like the unique style but admit a few times I had to remind myself this was meant to be a sort of dream/alternate world. if you keep that in mind I think you will enjoy this one!

Who ever thought of calling a princess "Bitsy"? This cutesy princess is like some pet lamb with a baby-talk name that's thrown into a bloody world she can't navigate and has problems thrown at her that she barely handles enough to not be swept away by the mess. Bitsy is as lost in the world she's taken to as a naïve lamb would be and ridiculously mismatched to the "creepy" atmosphere of that world and its mad king. Not to mention the plotline is so haphazard that it ends on a major cliffhanger (and bear in mind this book doesn't have a continuation, "The End" is written right there at the end, like in some Looney Tunes skit), and it all leaves you dissatisfied and confused.To put it succinctly, everything in this book from the writing to the characterisation to the plotting leaves much to be desired. When I first came across Creeping Beauty on NetGalley my interest was piqued. A fairytale retelling of Sleeping Beauty where the princess isn't dependent on a prince to save her? Count me in! Sadly, this book was not what I was expecting. While there were a lot of things about this book that had me disappointed, there were also a lot of things I really enjoyed.