Not a bad little fairytale reimagining. There are a lot of problems with Sleeping Beauty as a story in general. A sentence of death of an innocent child for the mere offense of not being invited to a party is a hard to swallow villain motivation. Our heroine does nothing but fails not to touch a spindle and fall asleep. Our hero does nothing but kiss her and whisk her away into a marriage that a modern audience can hardly accept as having a possibility for "happiness."

Flinn fixes all of these things. Our heroine is both sufficiently spoiled and sheltered that a princess in her position might be, but later exhibits intelligence and kindness. Our hero is given time not only to become more of a hero than just a guy who kisses sleeping girls and is also able to fall in love with her properly. Finally, our villainess is give a far better motivation for her anger, as well as depth to her character.

The audio book is excellent in that, as the chapters switch from Jack and Talia's perspective, the reading switches between Angela Dawe and Nick Podehl. Even better, however, is that when they switch between dialogue of Talia and Jack by doing fairly good impressions of each other.

A pretty good, light, teen love story with decent characters, though don't look for a self-rescuing princess here. Unfortunately, Sleeping Beauty always naps through the exciting part, doesn't she?