AnjaIsReading

reading The Wide-Awake Princess made clear that one is never too old to read fairytales ^^

it's the story about princess annabelle (what a beautiful name), the younger sister of gwendolyn aka sleeping beauty. am i right in assuming that everyone is familiar with the story of sleeping beauty? if not, i recommend to read it along with all the other fairytales put down on paper by the grimm brothers :)

on her christening gwennie is cursed by a wicked fairy godmother to to prick her finger on a spinning wheel upon turning sixteen. to avoid getting annie cursed, too, king halbert and queen karolina seeking the help of fairy godmother, moonbeam, to grant annie one single magical gift, which is making her immune to further magic.

bad thing: annie has to to survive on her natural charm, and that's a funny thing in a world fueled and altered by magic.
good thing: all magic will bounce back from her, no magic can touch her or bring harm to her, what comes in handy with her, erm, task.

on gwennie's 16th birthday the curse strikes, gwennie falls into a deep sleep - and everyone with her. everyone but annie. so, with the help of liam, one of the guards, she set's out to find her sister's true love, because only a true love's kiss can break the curse.

annie's story is an experience on its own :D funny, cute, adventurous, cute, crazed, cute, heartwarming, cute, exciting, cute, swoon-worthy, cute, charming, and not to mention cute. yeah, with the wide-awake princess the author and i have one thing in common: a favorite word. hers is 'although' (no kidding, there are countles althoughs in this book), mine is 'cute'. there's no other word to describe this book. it's cute.

i loved how the author mixed together so many fairytales. among others we meet the frog prince, hansel and gretel, rapunzel, and snow white and rose red, and all of them have a (in some cases crazy) story of their own.
furthermore i loved the characters, esp. liam and annie. she's a kick-ass heroine (even though sometimes a bit too serene), and liam... is just liam <3<br/>the writing was a little too simple (see my althoughgate-complain ^^), but in the end it was suitable for the narration.

all in all i enjoyed reading the wide-awake princess, it was the cutest book i've read in a long time.