Genre: Christian Fairy-Tale Retelling

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Literary Value: 4.5/5 Waking Beauty is well-written, but the writing occasionally left me confused on what was happening. This wasn’t so much a sentence-level issue as a scene-level issue, and part of it might have been that I read the book over several weeks and sometimes forgot what was going on.

Worldview: 5/5 Waking Beauty had several lovely themes of trusting in God and accepting His plan for your life. I don’t recall anything I disagreed with.

Enjoyability: 4/5 I almost didn’t finish Waking Beauty. The opening chapters were well-written, but I had a hard time relating to either main character. Arpien (the prince) was entertaining, but I struggled to relate to him, and Brierly (the princess) honestly irritated me. So I put the book down for a few weeks.

But when I picked it up again, the story really took off! Both Arpien and Brierly change and grow so much throughout the book that I connected with them much better as the story progressed. Once several side characters are introduced about a fourth of the way in, I found the story much more interesting overall.

So, while it was a hard book to get into, I would definitely read it again. The storyline was entertaining and hard to predict, and the characters kept getting more interesting as the story continued.

Caveats: At the time of writing, it’s been several weeks since I finished Waking Beauty—so as always, please read with discretion! However, this should be a safe read for 13+ (or even younger, although preteen readers might have a harder time following the story).

Waking Beauty contains two kisses, both barely described, between Arpien (the prince) and Brierly (Sleeping Beauty). A war occurs in the story, so Waking Beauty includes a few battle scenes plus one assassination attempt (an explosion). Nothing was described in gratuitous detail, and the violence level was equal or a little less than the typical middle grade fantasy.

As a Christian book, one character in Waking Beauty is a type of Christ, and I found his sufferings for the sinful characters to be the most disturbing part of the story (hard to describe without giving the plot away!). While that scene is a little more detailed, it only points the reader towards gratitude for Christ’s sacrifices for us.

Sensitive readers might want to skim parts of that description, but even that scene is on par with typical middle grade fantasy.

One side character struggles with body image, especially when comparing herself to Brierly. Her struggles aren’t overly dwelt on, and are resolved in the end.