3.5 Briar Rose Stars

I had a lot of fun reading this book. I love when retellings get really creative and change a lot of things, because reading the exact same story can be so boring. It was a great book to binge and was interesting and creative, but I could definitely tell that it was a debut novel.

There were moments where I had to pause and think, "did I really just read about a heart beat so loud that people can probably hear it....again?" There were also some moments that definitely could have been shorter. There was a lot of internal dialogue that I felt didn't need to be explained in the way that it did. It just felt longer than it needed to be.

Despite the repetition and the sporadic drawn out pieces, I did enjoy the world building, and all the background of Briar. There weren't elements that I disliked enough to take out, it just felt like there was ... kind of a lot of stuff happening.

I almost was willing to give this four stars, almost. I think for how drawn out some of it was, and how many things were happening all at once, that the ending was rushed. It felt a little, ahem,

Spoiler

like Game of Thrones

in the end. Most of you know the feeling.

Big Takeaway:
Definitely a fun debut novel, with a fun twist on Sleeping Beauty, but perhaps missing that element of literary magic to all come together better. BUT I'm very excited for more books by Heather Walter. I can feel that she will grow as an author and she can blow us all away one day.

*I was given a review copy of this book & am leaving a review voluntarily