I loved the message of self-discovery in the end. I love that Braswell turned the original story’s instalove into a much more relatable romance in this book.) It’s all given her a warped sense of reality and she can’t decide what to believe or how to feel about any of it! (Including Prince Phillip. She finds out that her entire dream life (which she feels like she’s lived in its entirety) has been fake and THEN starts to remember pieces of her “real” life – which she discovers was pretty much all a lie, since she never knew she was a princess and didn’t know her aunts were fairies. She feels like she’s been living through one lie after another. Dream, reality or lie? One of the main themes of the book is the fact that Aurora has to discover who she truly is.The alternate story. I was fascinated by the alternate reality that Maleficent created and how she twisted everything to make herself look like the savior.Aurora is dreaming up an alternate reality (thanks to Maleficent) where the good fairy Maleficent has rescued the world from Aurora’s evil parents!

Except, instead he falls asleep too and ends up being pulled into her dream. It starts up right before where the Disney movie ended – Prince Phillip has just made his way to Aurora so that he can give her True Love’s Kiss and wake her up. This book turns Sleeping Beauty’s story on its ear. In fact, I’m not even quite sure why I decided to read this one, but I wanted to give the author and the concept another chance, and I’m really glad I did because this one was much more enjoyable for me than the Aladdin book. The first book in this series of standalones honestly didn’t thrill me.

Will the sleeping beauty be able to wake herself up? But with Maleficent's agents following her every move, Aurora struggles to discover who her true allies are, and moreover, who she truly is. Soon she stumbles upon Phillip, a charming prince eager to join her quest. With a desperate fairy's last curse infiltrating her mind, Princess Aurora will have to navigate a dangerous and magical landscape deep in the depths of her dreams. But when said prince falls asleep as soon as his lips meet the princess's, it is clear that this fairy tale is far from over. It should be simple-a dragon defeated, a slumbering maiden, a prince poised to wake her. What if the sleeping beauty never woke up? Once Upon a Dream marks the second book in a new YA line that reimagines classic Disney stories in surprising new ways. My content rating: YA (Nothing more than kissing, Some slight violence) Once Upon a Dream Series: A Twisted Tale #2

Once upon a dream by liz braswell