Wow - talk about a slow read! The tale of "Sleeping Beauty" is one of my very favorites, so I picked this up with great enthusiasm. Unfortunately, this re-telling failed to capture the magic part of a fairy tale retelling. I just didn't enjoy it at all. Maybe it was a case of high expectations making it seem worse than it was... McKinley definitely displayed some originality in the story itself, but overall, it was the style was that spoiled the book. No actual action took place at all... And the verb tenses were almost all passive, making the novel all just "telling", resulting in a very slow-going and boring book! What a disappointment! I have enjoyed McKinley's books in the past, but this really isn't a good example of her talent!