"We ride on — we dying girls, we sorry girls, gallows-bound — until the fairy-tale spires of Perceforest Castle rise through the trees, gilded by the setting sun."

Sleeping Beauty, the worst and least feminist of fairy tales, gets a modern, multiversed, feminist AF update in a sharp-as-a-spindle little novella that reads a bit like a prequel. (It's the first of a new Fractured Fables series that I now have very high hopes for).

Zinnia Gray is celebrating her twenty-first, and probably her last, birthday. She's not exactly okay with that, but she's managing, thanks. She's had this fatal illness for years and has put aside her childish hopes of escaping its curse to reach twenty-two. Still, she's secretly happy to indulge in the Sleeping Beauty-themed surprise party her best friend is throwing for her. She used to be obsessed with Sleeping Beauty — in a way that only dying girls could be. Maybe she still is. Why else would she press her finger to the sharp spindle of the party-prop spinning wheel, drawing blood and a path into another Sleeping Beauty's tale? She can't have her happily-ever-after, but maybe she can find a better once-upon-a-time...

"I don't know about the moral arc of the universe, but our arcs sure as hell don't bend toward justice. Unless we change them. Unless we grab our narratives by the ear and drag them kicking and screaming toward better endings. Maybe the universe doesn't naturally bend toward justice, either; maybe it's only the weight of hands and hearts pulling it true, inch by stubborn inch."

I love Alix E. Harrow's writing. This feels like a strikingly new voice for her, but with the familiar undertones of strength, lyricism, thoughtfulness, subversion. And plenty of meta, literature-nerd catnip. If it didn't have that sort of prequel feel to it, I'd definitely give it 5 stars. And if it turns out to be the start of an awesome series so the prequel feel makes all kinds of sense, I'll definitely come back and revise that rating.

Topics, tropes and themes:chronic illness, mortality, parent-child relationship, friendship, feminism, arts and science, metaphysics, metanarratives, fairy tales, folk lore, coming of age, adolescent development, self-determination, community, activism, mental health, magic, story-telling, meta literature nerd references, pop culture,
Content notes:
fatal chronic illness, vague references to sexual assault and abortion, self-inflected minor wounds and bleeding, talk of teenage runaway plans, fainting, organ failure, hospital scene, strong language

My thanks to #NetGalley and TorDotCom for a digital ARC!