From the Bookshelf of Once Upon a Time...…

Once Upon a Dream

Liz Braswell

Start date: November 1, 2022

Finish date: November 30, 2022

Discussion: Retelling & Fractured Tales

Discussion leader: Shanna

Why we're reading this: November 2022 Group Read
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Retelling & Fractured Tales

A Dream of Ebony and White (Beyond the Four Kingdoms #4) by Melanie Cellier - July 2025
By Gem , Belle · 5 posts · 13 views

last updated Jul 16, 2025 04:59PM

Hook's Little Mermaid (The Untold Stories) by Susanna Lynn - May 2025
By Gem , Belle · 3 posts · 11 views

last updated Jun 04, 2025 07:42PM

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What Members Thought

Nov 03, 2022 Kyle Dunne rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5/5.0 Stars

The way many of the classic Disney fairy tales often work is that the villain gets to see all of maybe two minutes of success before their evil plans are thwarted, often by an untimely death at the hands of our heroes. Ursula gets to make a giant whirlpool. The Evil Queen supposedly becomes fairest in the land despite turning herself into an old hag. And Maleficent gets to be a dragon.

Well, this series of books asks: “What if the villain were successful for just a little bit longer 3.5/5.0 Stars

The way many of the classic Disney fairy tales often work is that the villain gets to see all of maybe two minutes of success before their evil plans are thwarted, often by an untimely death at the hands of our heroes. Ursula gets to make a giant whirlpool. The Evil Queen supposedly becomes fairest in the land despite turning herself into an old hag. And Maleficent gets to be a dragon.

Well, this series of books asks: “What if the villain were successful for just a little bit longer than those two minutes?” Say, perhaps… for most of the length of a novel.

In Once Upon a Dream, Prince Philip doesn’t lift the curse by kissing an unconscious, sixteen-year-old girl he briefly met once before. In fact, he also becomes cursed with the enchanted sleep after this morally dubious act, getting trapped alongside Aurora in her own magical dream, a dream where Maleficent has taken refuge. What follows is a story of Aurora navigating and discovering the rules of her slightly uncanny, not-always-one-hundred-percent-logical dream, as is the way dreams often tend to be.

I’d like to add at this point that this may be the only book I’ve read that could end in anything resembling “And then she woke up and it was all just a dream” without moving me to chuck said book out the nearest window in frustration for wasting my time. We know in advance that she’s in a dream and trying to get out.

Anyway… if you are a fan of the original animated Disney film, Sleeping Beauty, if you’ve ever longed for a bit more depth of character for our beloved Aurora and Philip (admittedly, Prince Philip might not have a ton more character depth here, but it’s still plenty more than he had in the movie), or if you’re just a fan of Disney fairy tales in general, I would recommend this book.

Though full disclosure: I have a fairly high-level prescription of rose-colored Disney glasses (Briar Rose-colored Disney glasses, even). Call me biased. Or pre-excited. Or some other third thing. My main complaint with the book that keeps it from a higher rating is that it lingered a little too much here and there and could have trimmed maybe 40 pages from the total count. That being said, it was still a fairly quick and easy read. I’ll certainly be checking out more books in the series based on other favorite Disney movies of mine. ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Shelly Hammond rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book is absolutely delightful but if you thought Maleficent was scary before this version of her will remind you why she is often times thought of as one of the baddest of the Disney baddies.
In this twisted tale, when Prince Philip gets to the Princess and gives her that almighty kiss that will wake her from her slumber... he falls asleep too. Now he just might be adrift in Aurora's dream land but it might not be clear to the princess that she's even dreaming. Yet. She stumbles upon someth ...more

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Nov 23, 2022 Gem rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, fairy-tales, young-adult, romance, z-2022-read, retelling

This is a Sleeping Beauty retelling that had an interesting premise of Aurora not waking up when Phillip kissed her. She struggled to figure out what she was dreaming and what was real. It was better than I expected given the low rating it had. While I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either. It was compelling enough for me to want to finish. ...more

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