If I were ranking the first third of this book, I would rank it probably somewhere between four and five stars, however I am not ranking the first third of this book and that's unfortunate because the strength of that first third is almost destroyed by the rest of the book.
Slumber is an alternate Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose story and at first a very intriguing one. Rory is in a asylum on charge of killing her boyfriend Phillip, which she cannot remember and after all the time she's been there, she isn't sure of anything anymore. Now being as this is clearly a 'Sleeping Beauty' story, anyone who's read the fairy tale, knows the backplot, so the trick for the author is to weave a taut story around the obvious.
At first, Christy really pulls out all the stops, we get a very dehumanising look in the asylum, she's having dreams of being a princess and I'm all set to read about her returning memories, but at this point the book decides to take a strange detour and we instead get several people show up (some who've been in the asylum with her for a year) to tell her about her reality.
And from this point, I kinda started to skim. Rory doesn't really do anything to help herself, every single bit of information she possesses is handed to her. In a twist, the hot boy who's suddenly arrived at the asylum and ringing her bell is 'not' the prince but some random stable boy that she was banging...sorry snogging secretly on the side. And apparently Maleficient wants her to remember everything before she kills her because 'reasons'. I seriously didn't understand her reasons for putting her in an asylum and trying to make her remember in order to kill her and gain the throne (the woman had already conquered the country - what was with all the capturing and psychology and the damn asylum wasn't even a real place, just the glamoured castle)
A good deal of the dialogue is pretty forced from about the midpoint on and several events made me roll my eyes.
I will say that I enjoyed the premise and first third of this book, I would have loved it but unfortunately it dropped the ball and it never really retrieved its early mojo.
I would recommend people to read it, but I became a little disillusioned.
***
Slumber is an alternate Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose story and at first a very intriguing one. Rory is in a asylum on charge of killing her boyfriend Phillip, which she cannot remember and after all the time she's been there, she isn't sure of anything anymore. Now being as this is clearly a 'Sleeping Beauty' story, anyone who's read the fairy tale, knows the backplot, so the trick for the author is to weave a taut story around the obvious.
At first, Christy really pulls out all the stops, we get a very dehumanising look in the asylum, she's having dreams of being a princess and I'm all set to read about her returning memories, but at this point the book decides to take a strange detour and we instead get several people show up (some who've been in the asylum with her for a year) to tell her about her reality.
And from this point, I kinda started to skim. Rory doesn't really do anything to help herself, every single bit of information she possesses is handed to her. In a twist, the hot boy who's suddenly arrived at the asylum and ringing her bell is 'not' the prince but some random stable boy that she was banging...sorry snogging secretly on the side. And apparently Maleficient wants her to remember everything before she kills her because 'reasons'. I seriously didn't understand her reasons for putting her in an asylum and trying to make her remember in order to kill her and gain the throne (the woman had already conquered the country - what was with all the capturing and psychology and the damn asylum wasn't even a real place, just the glamoured castle)
A good deal of the dialogue is pretty forced from about the midpoint on and several events made me roll my eyes.
I will say that I enjoyed the premise and first third of this book, I would have loved it but unfortunately it dropped the ball and it never really retrieved its early mojo.
I would recommend people to read it, but I became a little disillusioned.
***