A Long Long Sleep

Title: A Long Long Sleep
Author: Anna Sheehan
Pub: 2011; Candlewick
Pages: 342;
Genre: Fairy Tale retelling (Sleeping Beauty); Science Fiction; Young Adult

Ahhhhhh!  I lurrved me this book fiercely.  It has been a LONG time since I've found a book that once I started I could literary NOT PUT IT DOWN.  A Long Long Sleep was that book for me.  Seriously.  Like, I was even reading it on my IPhone which I never do because it's teeny and I have an IPad to read on but I just had to be able to take this book with me wherever I go.

Do you get it?  I mean truly get how hard I loved this book?

Rose is woken up by a kiss (sound like a familiar fairy tale?) and is quite startled.  Normally when she's stassing she wakes up to her mom's caress not a strange boy.  Startled she begins asking for her mom and her long time best friend and boyfriend Xavier.  But because she's been in stasis for so long, her body is weak and she can't run away.  Bren, the kissy-boy realizes almost immediately what he's done and who he's kissed.  After HIS shock he goes and grabs his grandad to figure out the situation.

Rose has been in stass for decades.  Everyone that she once knew has died, and even though her birth certificate would say she's nearly one hundred, her actually life is maybe a junior in high school.  Oh yeah, she's also the heir to the world's all-controlling corporation.  Bren knows this because his grandad is the second in command.

Most of the book is Rose's process of figuring out this new life and dealing with the loss of the life she left behind.  The world is SO different.  And one of my all time favorite characters was this alien mix breed who cannot speak but communicates via touch and mind, Otto.  He is fascinated with Rose and Rose finds comfort in their communication over the tablet. [1]

There was an equal amount of time spent on developing the characters and the plot.  Someone is out to off Rose and figuring out who is the mystery woven in.  And man oh man it was a dagger of a moment.  I suspected but it was all no no it can't be.

Other plot twists occurred in the same fashion.  I'd THINK something and then find I was kinda off.  Best thing ever, in my opinion.  A book that can out smart you.

Ooooh, and it doesn't get all romancy.  Sure the ending is left open for a possible love triangle (blerg) and the development of a series, but if you just wanted to read this as a stand alone, you could.

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[1] I think why I dug Otto so much is because their relationship was so open on the tablet and then in real life you could see how it was sorta complicated and awkward.  Reminded me SO much of my early AOL times chatting it up online the end of my senior year/freshman year of college.