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May 13, 2010

Madeline rated it:

Becca has grown up hearing her grandmother (called "Gemma" because one of her granddaughters couldn't pronounce "grandma") tell the story of Sleeping Beauty to her and her sisters. Gemma's story is different from the widely-known version, however - in this one, Briar Rose has red hair (like Gemma) and lives in a castle where everyone falls asleep after an evil fairy sends a mist over everyone. When the prince comes to the castle, he kisses Sleeping Beauty, but she is the only More...

3 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 25, 2008

Jolie rated it:

I have always loved fairy tales, and their retellings, ever since I got my hands on a complete collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales. So I was excited to find this retelling of Sleeping Beauty that is, of all things, also a Holocaust story. Becca is the 3rd daughter (third--very important in fairy tales...)of a Jewish family, whose grandmother, known to them as Gemma, has slipped into senility and finally dies. On her deathbed, Gemma makes Becca promise to track down her inheritance--the truth--o More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2008

Natalie rated it:

If you picked up this book thinking it was a fantasy/modern fairytale, you will be disappointed. There is NO fantasy, magic, magical creatures, alternate realities etc in this book. In fact, I almost didn't finish it because it seemed like a pretty standard piece of fluff for over half the book.
I am glad that I did finish it, though. The only reason I did was because I decided to look up some reviews to see what the deal was. I found this book looking for retelling of fairytales/fant More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Cinco rated it:

You can always depend on Jane Yolen for excellent writing, but this is my absolute favorite of hers. She manages to combine the Holocaust, the Sleeping Beauty tale, and a young woman's memories of her grandmother into a really wonderful book. Very highly recommended.

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

This novel retells a segment of the holocaust through the lens of a family story masquerading as a fairy tale. This device was interesting and ambitious, but it fell flat. I had a little trouble determine the intended audience for this book. The viewpoint character is a young woman, a recent college graduate still living at home. (At one point, we are gratuitously informed that she had watched one of the soft porn movies on late night tv.) But the simplicity of the language suggested a youn More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Monica! rated it:

So had you asked me, friends, to tell you the story of Sleeping Beauty—the real story, not the one that Disney had girlified—I would have tried to patch together some half-remembered Grimm’s Fairy Tale, maybe with a bit of the original French story thrown in. I also would have included the details that the bad fairy had silver eagles in her hair, and that the prince, when he tried to break through the wall of thorns surrounding the castle, was sung to by the ghosts of people who had tried to ge More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2011

{eri} rated it:

This book was fantastic! I knew right of the bat I was going to like it, just by the way it was written and the characters developed. The story begins with a grandmother (called Gemma because her granddaughters couldn't pronounce 'grandma') telling for what we can tell is perhaps the millionth time, the story of Sleeping Beauty. What the story's protagonist called "Seepin' Boot". :]

I smiled. I cried. I was very interested. All in all, this is definitely a good read in my b More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Muphyn rated it:

Hmm, I first rated this 3 stars, now I'm debatting to downgrad it to 2 stars. The start was good, the ending wasn't too bad but the middle was seriously weak - I was not impressed (and I can't even be bothered to go into all the details).

Just a couple of things...
1) Once Becca got to Poland (and oh, wasn't that all so very easy all of a sudden?), she was just sooo annoying, constantly correcting Magda's English. Interestingly, Magda only seemed to have trouble constructing simp More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 13, 2008

Karen rated it:

This beautiful tale takes you out of time and into the "reality" of the Holocaust. Set around a woman's retelling of the simple Sleeping Beauty story you see the influence of World War II in the snatches of the story long before the narrative takes you there. It becomes a matter of the narrative confirming your guesses rather than revealing anything.

I've always been "haunted" by the Holocaust. I've never seen Schindler's List (which may be a good thing since this More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2009

Alicia added it

An odd combination of a fairy tale (Briar Rose aka Sleeping Beauty-- which I did not know) and a Holocaust story. It alternates between the present and past and is about the journey of finding out about your past, especially from those who lived the terrible truths of the 1940s.

A couple things are striking-- first, the cover art is beautiful, the hidden face, the roses, the barbed wire. Second, the topics of homosexuality are examined. Most know that many homosexuals were killed as More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Eileen rated it:

It is hard to imagine how a fairy tale and the Holocaust could have anything in common. Jane Yolen manages to create a powerful allegory of Sleeping Beauty and Gemma’s horrifying internment in a Polish extermination camp.

I did not know too much about this story as I started reading, but I felt a sense of sadness immediately; Gemma in the nursing home, Becca and her strained relationship with her sisters. Even Becca remembering how Gemma told her version of Sleeping Beauty had a terr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 15, 2008

Summer rated it:

Jane Yolen explores the story of Sleeping Beauty by setting it during the Holocaust. If this sounds like a difficult book to read, it is, but it also addresses the idea of personal history as story and brings to the surface the dark nature of many classic folk tales.

Unfortunately, the dialogue is jarringly flat - I've seen Yolen write much better - and the romantic subplot distracts from the narrative as a whole. If Yolen had just focused on Gemma, this would have been a five-star bo

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Shannon rated it:

Briar Rose is a re-imagining of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty. Unfortunately, it wasn't the retelling I was hoping for. I had hoped for either a new and adult take on a fairy tale, or a new look at an old story that I could share with my 10 and 12 year old daughters. This book provided neither. Here's what it did give me: a way to see how fairy tales tell us more about real life than we might imagine.

Briar Rose tells the story of Becca, a 23 year old journalist whose grandmother, More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2011

Bethany rated it:

Becca's grandmother, called Gemma for the way her oldest granddaughter pronounced "grandma", has spent all the years Becca's known her telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, in a beautiful, peculiar, haunting way that Becca loves and rememembers word for word. But when Gemma dies, leaving behind a box of clippings, photographs, and trinkets, Becca realizes that no one really knew Gemma--they know she's Jewish, think she's Polish, but not even Gemma's daughter knowns where she lived, ho More...

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Jun 22, 2011

Pamela rated it:

I am still scratching my head, wondering why this book has such a great reputation for being this powerful, poetic, touching book about the Holocaust.

Uh, nope, still haven't figured it out. My objections to the book echo many other readers': the lack of editing, the flat and clunky characters, the laughably superfluous romantic subplot, which doesn't really seem to go anywhere and then in the final pages suddenly happens ... just, wow. I don't want to rehash the story either, altho More...

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Jan 31, 2011

Anne rated it:

I freakin' hated this book. I read it for a book discussion group with some other teachers. Most of them liked it but I found it horrendous. It was like a romance novel with a fairy tale theme. The characters were so blah and dumbed down. The youngest sister, Becca, was so goody two shoes it made you want to barf and the older two sisters were like the stereotypical "wicked step-sisters." Plus, it is totally unbelievable that someone as shallow and mean as one of those sisters wou More...

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Dec 30, 2010

Karissa rated it:

I really like fairy tale retellings, so I was eager to read this book. It is a good book, but not so much about fairy tales as about the Holocaust and one girl's struggle to uncover her grandmother's past.

Becca's grandmother, Gemma, always tells the story of Sleeping Beauty. As Gemma ages and gets sick, the story of Sleeping Beauty is the only thing she ever says. When Gemma passes she leaves a mysterious box of trinkets for Becca. Becca has promised to track down her grandmother's pas More...

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Oct 03, 2010

Kavanand rated it:

Briar Rose is a unique and inspired retelling of the story of Sleeping Beauty. It is part of the Fairy Tale series organized by Terri Windling, which features a number of classic tales retold by well-known fantasy authors.

In this version of the fairy tale, a young woman named Rebecca is very close to her grandmother Gemma. As children, Rebecca and her two older sisters loved to hear their grandmother tell them the story of Briar Rose. The older sisters outgrew their interest in the fa More...

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May 24, 2010

Circus rated it:

I am still baffled by the amount of rave reviews Briar Rose received. Admittedly, the story is very unique. The idea of comparing the Holocaust to the Sleeping Beauty fairytale may seem a bit far-fetched initially, yet Yolen manages to bring the truth of this parallel to light. Unfortunately, it was executed in a way that really detracted from what was formally an original idea. Instead we are left with a poorly written, confused, and mediocre young adult novel.

Many of the characters More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 17, 2010

Eavan rated it:

The best parts of this story take place in Poland, as the main character uncovers her grandmother's Holocaust history. Yolen elegantly balances story and history; her European characters struggle to make meaning out of their lives in the dark events that have shaped them. Partisans have to decide what their lives and deaths are worth. Their stories are artistic, grandiose, humorous, elliptical. "If one does not play games, then there is too much to weep about," comments one characte More...

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Mar 26, 2010

Kristin rated it:

Briar Rose is a Holocaust story, but it is so much more. Becca's grandmother, Gemma, tells her granddaughters the story of Briar Rose. Briar Rose's tale is much like Sleeping Beauty's, only more haunting. On her deathbed, Gemma reveals that she is Briar Rose. Becca promises her grandmother that she will solve the mystery that is her life.

What follows is Becca's journey to discover the story of Gemma's life. Jane Yolen has crafted a beautiful story that also reveals some of More...

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Sep 01, 2009

Linda rated it:

This book is marvelously crafted and it is one of the best I've read this year. It is a masterpiece of haunting beauty.

Though it was told in a much different rendition than the Disney interpretation, as a child Becca and her three sisters repeatedly heard the story of Briar Rose by their grandmother.

Becca, the youngest sister was enthralled by her grandmother's storytelling abilities. In real life, very little was known of Gemma, other than she insisted she was a princess More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 23, 2009

Becca rated it:

Don't let the title of the book fool you. While there is a Fairy Tale Element to this tale, the main focus is around the life of a (fictional) woman who survived the Holocaust. This book tells a very haunting story.

I think what I most closely related to was Becca's close relationship to her grandmother, Gemma. When Gemma passes, Becca makes a promise to find out Gemma's past, however, no one in the family knows much about Gemma - not her real name, not where she was from before comin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2009

Beth F. rated it:

I never read much Young Adult fiction before joining Goodreads because it never occurred to me that some of it could appeal to an adult reader. But that was then and this is now and while the majority of my book choices are still geared toward an adult audience, I'm certainly more open to YA as a possible source for enjoyment than I ever used to be. I'm glad because this book was a winner.

A lot of YA tends to oversimplify certain things and this was no exception, however, since the More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 08, 2011

Rebekah rated it:

Synopsis:

Becca has grown up hearing her grandmother tell the fairy tale of Briar Rose, the Sleeping Beauty, over and over and over. But Gemma’s version varies from the traditional story: in her telling, only the Princess comes awake at the kiss; everyone else remains in death-like sleep.

As she ages, and her mind and body fail, Gemma grows more insistent that she herself is Briar Rose. Most of the family has long since ceased to really listen to the old woman, and only More...

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Jan 19, 2011

Kimifly rated it:

It's not that this book is necessarily bad, but it wasn't what I expected when I picked it up and it didn't live up to the rave reviews I've heard about it.

After finishing this book, I feel like I must have missed quite a few pages along the way because I just don't get it. I didn't really care for the characters, I didn't find the story believable, the subplots served no purpose (actually neither did the main plot), the links between the tale and the actual story didn't always make se More...

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Nov 12, 2010

Laura rated it:

Wish I could give this three and a half stars. I read it all in one sitting, it was entertaining and educational and macabre all at the same time. The story is of a girl whose grandmother told and re-told the story of Sleeping Beauty throughout her childhood, telling her that she (the grandmother) was in fact Briar Rose, the maiden from the story. She tells her it's all true, and begs her on her deathbead to find the Prince, and to find her castle and inheritance. She's known nothing of her gran More...

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Mar 21, 2010

Dustin rated it:

This is a wistfully beautiful novel, masterfully written and very inventive. Caveat emptor, though: readers seeking a simple modernization, adaptation, or pastiche of the traditional Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty folk tale should look elsewhere. The novel's inclusion within Windling's Fair Tale Series is admittedly misleading, for, when considered holistically, the plot bears little to no resemblance to the eponymous tale. The story of Sleeping Beauty is reiterated ad nauseam through a series of ge More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 16, 2009

Emily rated it:

I love this book and deeply despise it at the same time.

As I read the back of the book, I just had this feeling that it would be my kind of story... and this proved to be very true. I'm a big fan of fairytales and historical fiction and Yolen threads the story of sleeping beauty and the holocaust beautifully. It was sad (I seem to be naturally drawn to books that deal with heartwrenching human experiences), it was intriguing ( a lot of clues that were fun to specualte about), it was More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2011

05caitlynl rated it:

Briar Rose
By Jane Yolen
241 pages
Man issue or problem in this book: No one knows Gemma's story, and Becca is left the duty.
In Life: people don't know much about the Holocaust.
Setting: It first is in modern day New York where Becca lives with her family. Then, as Becca figures out her Gemma's story, it leads her to modern day Poland. Then, as they learn the story from an old man who lived during the holocaust, the story will go into pastime Poland a little bit too.
Des More...

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