Book Review: Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer

Book: Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer (Twisted Tales book #2) by Maureen McGowan

Source: Library

Description:

In this thrilling story full of adventure and romance, Sleeping Beauty is more than just a lonely princess waiting for her prince—she's a brave, tenacious girl who never backs down from a challenge. With vampire-slaying talents that she practices in secret, Sleeping Beauty puts her courage to the test in the dark of night, fighting evil as she searches for a way to break the spell that has cut her off from her family. In a special twist, readers have the opportunity to make key decisions for Sleeping Beauty and decide where she goes next—but no matter the choice; the result is a story unlike any fairy tale you've ever read!




Rating: 2 stars

Review:

This was not a true "choose your own adventure" book because no matter what you selected certain things would happen regardless. And it didn't help that the ending was already set.

This was a total let down. I thought this was going to be a clever update on the classic fairy tale but there was no depth or insight to the characters or the story. There were vampire attacks and mysterious secrets but the writing didn't make it seem interesting. I found the beginning of the story so bad I nearly stopped reading it but as the story progressed it became a little better. However, the writing didn't change from being rather simplistic, I don't think it would have been noticeable if the story had been interesting.

I had a hard time trying to find anything likeable about King Stefan, who was shown as being mostly an angry overbearing idiot while Queen Catia wasn't much better although she did treat her daughter a little better than the King did. Princess Lucette...sometimes I liked her other times I didn't.

Lucette didn't really have any real romantic options, since her whole kingdom is asleep when she's woke. Her two love interest were Alex, a vampire who she met when she was younger and has returned and Tristan, a guy she used to train with when she was secretly enrolled into the Slayer Academy, who left but also returned. However there was something that took Alex out as a love interest and it had me wonder why the author included him in that role in the first place. He should have just been shown as a friend instead.

I really wished this had been better. There were some good things in this book but not enough to make the story engaging. I like the concept of the story it just didn't work well.