This is a lovely interpretation of “Sleeping Beauty”, where our main character suffers from a terminal illness, and it’s the suffocation of her parents’ love and trying to help her that’s ruled her life. She’s an adult now, on borrowed time, waiting for her figurative spinning wheel to appear, when instead, she’s sucked into another world, where she can change the destiny of another girl with her own similiar story.
Bringing the real world into a fairy tale retelling like this really works – there’s something so poignant about Zinnia’s story (she’s got a flower name, because of course, she has to). It’s quick too – very much to the point, because the author could have tried to make this about all the Sleeping Beauties, but kept it very controlled. I’m interested to see where the follow up book goes.