this is what my mother thinks would happen if i shopped at the men’s section once

It had a bit of a slow start, I thought at first, simply because the first two chapters were basically setting up the life of the main character. Although, even that was well written, and wasn't the classic, "Once upon a time, there was a kid with a loving family that had the best life ever, until one day.."

Instead, it started with conflict, the family attempting to leave the country. I decided to give it a chance, and once it was rolling, I could hardly set it down. It's an epic tale, a combination of historical fiction, fantasy, and folklore.

I fell in love with it, each concern and summit for each character as real as if I was going through the same struggles. I wouldn't call it poetic, but it was certainly beautiful writing.

I only got through a third of this book before I quit (which is really hard for me because even if a book is bad I usually finish it). I just realized that I was wasting my time. The story started out cool but as I got into the book I found myself caring less and less about all the one dimensional characters which in turn made the book meaningless. Some of the characters and dialogue was offensive so when I added it all up together I decided to move on.

It was fun to listen to the audiobook.

This book came highly recommended, but for the life of me I can't remember who recommended it. Based on my friends' reviews, not someone on Goodreads.

Enchantment certainly had potential. I was bored by the beginning but intrigued by the idea of the plot, so I kept reading. I enjoyed the middle but grew bored again and tired of the characters. Finally I reached the end where I conclude...it wasn't bad. But it wasn't a book I needed to read. This isn't one of those classics you force yourself through and then feel like a better person for reading. It was a creative fairy-tale that blends history and culture but never quite rises to the level of being really interesting. The switching POVs helped but the hero and heroine remain rather bland and perfect. I liked Esther and I appreciate that the story doesn't reveal all of its secrets...but in not revealing them, it also leaves a lot of conveniently timed things unexplained.

At 415 pages, I think this book is too long and not interesting enough to even be worth recommending. I'm also confused why my library shelved this as science fiction.

This is one book that my husband and I both enjoy and love to read together over and over. One of our favorites. It is a modern day Sleeping Beauty story, but it doesn't end when he wakes her up. Instead, the couple goes through the struggles of getting to know and understand eachother, including trying understand eachother's cultures, which are hundreds of years apart. They must learn how to love eachother and support eachother in trials and danger (which includes being chased through time and space by the witch that put the spell on her), finding their place in their new families, and learning how to make marriage work.

Please note: I would not give this book to teens or kids, because of a brief scene and references to married sexuality, but those were not offensive to us as a married couple as they are tastefully done and important to the story.

On the surface this book sounds great. Fairytales, fantasy, basis in actual folklore type stuff; it's even decently written.

However I found the characters so unlikable that the story was ruined for me. The main character abandons a fiancee that he was very happy with...*until* he met the princess. How..quaint and realistic. I hope you can detect the sarcasm. The mother is bordering on cruel to the previous fiancee. I do think the personalities and relationship, for the most part, were interpreted well and resembled realism. I just didn't care.

The early events in the book made it nearly impossible for me to appreciate any of the remaining story, because the characters were so reprehensible to me, I didn't really care what happened to them.

As most other reviewers have said it is a wonderful fantasy/fairytale romance and I would not have even minded the less appealing qualities of the characters if they had been used to show dynamics and growth. Instead I was asked to accept those faults as traits to be admired.

In the end, despite the sweet, though simple narrative and the broad range of topics explored, the story just fell flat.

Beautiful, and a lot of fun in places. It did take me a couple of tries to get into it.
Orson Scott Card is one of those authors whose writing kinda nests in my brain, leaving me thinking of ideas or phrases for years. Like an earworm. Brainworm?

Probably my favorite book I've read this year and my favorite by OSC. Just love it

My second retelling of a fairytale in a month and this one also with a Slavic folklore twist. I'm not sure what lead me to these recent reading choices but it's been fun delving into that world again.

I liked so much about this book. It's truly an adult retelling, nothing at all about it geared toward children but other than the fact it involves a beautiful sleeping princess, the story is uniquely original. It's clever and smart in so many ways. The time travel aspect adds a whole other dimension to the original version. The characters are multi-dimensional as well. Ivan, groomed since birth for his fate, an athlete, trained in ancient languages he moves thru his life protected by his mother's magic ~ which all add up to an unconventional "prince."

'Sleeping Beauty' is also a confident, self assured princess barely appreciative of being relieved of her sleeping curse. There's no instantaneous falling in love and living happily ever after, in fact she's quite critical of her rescuer! The majority of the story continues in that vein. It is refreshing to have a princess portrayed as having more attributes than just being beautiful tho and Katerina definitely has many.

I thought the story dragged on a bit, maybe some of the "self dialogue" could have used an edit and at times it was a stretch buying into the storyline even considering it was a fantasy (thinking Baba Yaga's bit in the modern world especially.) It might sound strange but I also found the book comical at times.

Happy I read it. The bulk of this retelling is focused on what happens after the awakening of 'Sleeping Beauty' ~ instead of that event being the climax I remember from childhood. The author did a good job of bringing all the threads together ~ neatly tying up the pieces from the more modern timeline to that of the medieval one. 3.5 Stars

Popsugar reading challenge: a book based on a fairy tale

I don't usually take time to actually review a book during this challenge, but I was really impressed with Orson Scott Card's adaptation of Russian folklore and Sleeping Beauty. It was very enjoyable!

OMG that was just so freaking cool! :D My last book for 2011, which I couldn't finish because it's kind of enormous, and so my first for 2012 as well. A nice end AND start to the years :D And I was hooked in straight away, there was no gradual warming up - I loved it from the start. The writing is just so delicious, and the tale itself so rich and wonderful... the perfect mix of fairy-tale fantasy and darkness. I LOVED the language geekery so much as well, that was utter brilliance. And the snappy banter between Bear and Baba Yaga often made me laugh out loud... such enjoyable villains! Although you really can't help but like Bear, he's just been suckered into one of her spells.

Baba Yaga is bloody terrifying. But so awesome. Dude, she HIJACKED A PLANE AND FLEW IT BACK TO THE NINTH CENTURY. I mean, who even DOES that?! And Katerina freaking rocked as well. She was so much better than Ruth... there was just no contest. You can't even really feel sorry for Ruth, losing Ivan so abruptly. She's got nothing on Katerina. I adored her - she's a princess, the sleeping beauty whom Ivan awakens... but she's not a simpering, fragile little thing. Oh hell no! She's feisty and strong and stubborn and a little bit snarky and arrogant. So much fun :D I loved the romance between her and Ivan. You know it's going to happen eventually, but it's all done so nicely and at such a gentle pace that it doesn't feel forced or sudden or anything. Just natural.

I loved both times in this book equally - Katerina in the 20th century, Ivan in the 9th. Usually I much favour one over the other, but these were both done so brilliantly. The gorgeous historicalness of the 9th and the language geekery, contrasted so nicely to that fun culture-clash which happens when someone is shifted forward in time. And it was fun to have all of the recent day Russian politics in the background as well, an interesting touch.

Uncle Marek's true identity came as a huge surprise. I love how everything wove together like that. :) I loved how Ivan managed to beat Bear to get to the princess. I loved the humour that was always there. I loved the author snarking about JFK airport twice within the space of like five pages:

"...and the six-mile walk down tubes and ramps before they got to the airplanes, which apparently parked in Sag Harbour."

"Some of the same clerks were on duty, watching Ivan and Katerina very carefully, but treating them with more politeness than usual, which, at Kennedy, isn't a hard standard to surpass."

LOL BURN.

Totally can't fault this in any way... only that it had to finish at all :)