A KISS IN TIME
by Alex Flinn
Sleeping Beauty wakes up in the 21st century; clichés ensue. When Princess Talia pricks her finger on a spindle on her 16th birthday, she fulfills a curse that puts the entire kingdom of Euphrasia to sleep for centuries. Modern teen Jack, on the lam from a guided bus tour of Europe, discovers the slumbering kingdom and wakes the princess in a decidedly creepy date-rape–like scenario. Both wishing to flee the clutches of the king, they escape together to Jack’s home in Miami, where the girls are either vapid sluts or nerdy brains and the boys are mostly just clueless. The narration shifts between Talia and Jack, but the device sheds little light into their characters; both are too broadly drawn to engage readers. She seems petulant and pampered but turns out to be kind and adaptable; he’s supposedly a slacker, but he’s really brimming with motivation. All too easily they buff away each other’s sharp edges, though their lack of chemistry makes their inevitable declarations of love forced and awkward. There is nothing fresh about this reinterpretation. (Fantasy. 11-14)