Creeping Beauty: Fairy Tales Gone Bad

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Sign up for my mailing list to get a free RH spoof story that pokes fun at all the tired old tropes: Portes was raised in rural Nebraska, outside of Lincoln. She attended Bryn Mawr College on full scholarship and later received her MFA from University of California, San Diego. After graduation, Portes moved to the neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles. 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 I love fairytale retellings, but Creepy Beauty is unpolished mess of a story. I think Andrea Portes was trying to go for some kind of Sleeping Beauty x Through the Looking Glass dark fantasy mash-up, but it feels like she just took a bunch of random elements, threw it in a blender, and called it a day. Unfortunately, the only good this book was good for was trying to help me go to sleep.

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It makes for a great fairy tale but I think it would be better pitched with less adult themes and moved into the middle grade category to suit the nature of the writing and the characters. The writing felt like it would fit better in the middle grade zone, however the content is defiantly YA/NA so the two didn't flow so well. First of all, the atmosphere of the story was everything I'd expect from a fairytale retelling. While reading I really did feel like I was in a fairytale, and the descriptions were well done and gave me clear pictures of what the world looked like. However, the world-building could have been more well-done, and the world didn't make a lot of sense. The story had a vibe similar to Caraval, as you were never quite sure what was real, who you could trust, or what was happening. This is one of the things that kept me interested and ultimately made me finish the book. I wanted to learn how the story ended and why everything happened, as we weren't shown why she fell asleep, to begin with, and I couldn't quite piece it together on my own. I also felt at times the plot was rushed mostly at the ending, I wanted more from the book and that ending left me feeling blah about it. I really came to like Bitsy and Peregrine as the story progressed. Peregrine was a delightful ray of sunshine and amusement that this story desperately needed with so much darkness. Bitsy was rather funny at times and a true princess through and through.

I eventually DNF’d this story at 41%. I really pushed through hoping it would get better but I was simply disinterested and utterly baffled at what was going on. We kept jumping from event to event with no in between, the characters had no substance to them and the plot felt so all over the place that I was permanently lost. I know how hard writing a book is and I always feel guilty for not liking a book, and even more so when I can’t finish a book. But this story really does not do it for me. I needed world-building, I needed characters of substance, I needed a likeable MC so that reading through their eyes would not feel like a chore. This book sadly does not deliver.I enjoyed all the different characters that were in the book. I thought each of them were all different in their own way and it showed. I loved the mythology running through this world about “the one who fell from the sky”. I also really liked her character development throughout most of this going from a princess who sneaks away from tough situations to a fighter. 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. 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. There was a lot of unnecessary filler. That made it drag at a lot of points which made it hard to keep going sometimes.

What instantly drew me to this book was the enchantingly beautiful cover. Once I saw that the story was a retelling of the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty, I was eager to read it. 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! I loved the crazy world she traveled to and that it DIDN’T make sense! It wasn’t supposed to! This is an alternate reality not dissimilar from Wonderland. 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!Creeping Beauty was a book that instantly caught my attention. A re-telling of Sleeping Beauty with elements of an almost Through the Looking Glass style. It was hard not be excited. While this wasn’t a full five stars, probably a 3.5 rounded to 4 for me it did have a good premise let down by a few pieces along the way. 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. The story was a bit difficult to follow from there until Bitsy finally found people who spoke her language. Bitsy’s thoughts, actions, and words were incredibly age appropriate for a shy teen, but difficult to muddle through from a reader’s perspective. Thankfully, once Bitsy can actually communicate with the characters and starts to come out of her shell, the story became very enjoyable - full of dark twists and adventure.