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A Long, Long Sleep: 09/18/11
A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan is a debut dystopian novel. It takes the Sleeping Beauty story in a new direction. Rosalind Fitzroy expects to wake up from stasis to find her mother with champagne as she always does. Instead she finds a strange boy and an equally strange future. It takes time but she pieces together that she's been forgotten in stasis for sixty-two years. And now she's the ward of her parents' company, a company that has grown beyond the stars. As Rose deals with the physical problems of such a long term stasis, she starts to piece together the missing years. We learn along with her of the Dark Times where climate change, drug resistant disease and socio-economic depression took its toll on the population. I loved piecing together the missing details of Rose's life and the times between her disappearance and her awakening. Her memories of Xander, the boy she draws over and over through the course of the book, help bring her childhood to life and reveal flaws in how she tells her childhood. Where things felt in need of improvement was Rose's friendship with Otto. He has his own strange background and could probably stand alone as a protagonist in a separate book. As he can't speak, all of is interaction is rendered as text messages between in Rose and himself. These long passages are rendered in an ugly type face and get bogged down with an excess of exposition and back story. A Long Long Sleep, though, is a first novel. There's room for growth and I think future books will be better. If the novel is made into a film, I would go see it. There's great world building and lots of visually interesting scenes waiting for the big screen. Three stars. Comments (4) Comment #1: Monday, September, 19, 2011 at 09:58:09 I knew about the fairytale retelling but I must've missed the dystopian aspect of the novel. That's a really intriguing combination! This book is in my tbr pile and I'm looking forward to reading it. Comment #2: Monday, September 19, 2011 at 21:22:15 Pussreboots I had missed the dystopian aspect of the book too until I started reading it. I sort of went with: "ooh pretty cover!" for deciding to read it. Comment #3: Saturday, September, 24, 2011 at 22:42:38 wow. this sounds very interesting. Thanks for the review. Comment #4: Monday, September 26, 2011 at 13:16:19 Pussreboots It was interesting. I'm glad you liked the review.
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