In this retelling of Sleeping Beauty, the wicked witch is not the one responsible for the curse placed upon the Princess Aurora. The wicked witch is, in fact, the one who breaks it.
Background: the small yet wealthy kingdom of Briar, owing to an alliance with a nearby fairy kingdom, must always be ruled by a woman of the founding queen’s line. Owing to a long-ago war between Briar, their fairy allies, and a now-defeated dark fairy kingdom, there is a curse upon the Briar royal line: if they don’t receive love’s first kiss by their 21st birthday, they die. As thanks for their help in that war, some girls (known as Graces) in Briar are born with a portion of fairy magic, able to (temporarily) bestow beauty and grace upon the citizens of Briar.
Whether or not this alliance has been good for Briar is … debatable. The Queens have gradually ceded more and more power to their husbands, and are figureheads at this point. The gifts of the Graces have led to a court that is entirely vain and superficial, obsessed with physical beauty. The wealth that comes from their alliance with the fairies has led to Briar’s ruling classes becoming decadent, while the poor live in squalor. The Graces themselves live in gilded slavery, required by law to sell their talents to anyone who wishes to buy them (with the crown taking a hefty cut).
Our protagonist is Alyce, a so-called “Dark Grace” with powers that derive from the defeated dark fairy kingdom and are a dark mirror of the Graces’ usual powers. She is tolerated to exist (barely) because as obsessed with making themselves beautiful as they are, the court of Briar is equally interested in seeing their rivals get a bad case of acne before the ball as they are in their own appearances. Like all the Graces, she gets no say in how she is used. Unlike the normal Graces, she doesn’t get any of the social benefits that come with it.
Two things happen that put Alyce’s life on a distinctly different trajectory. One is that she sneaks her way into one of the royal balls and meets Aurora. Aurora, who resents being regularly sexually assaulted. (Every single suitor gets to kiss her on the chance he (always he) will be the one to break the curse. Every. Single. One.) She resents the fact that even if the curse IS broken, the rando who breaks it will get all the power and she’ll be a figurehead. In short, she and Alyce have each finally met someone who hates the status quo as much as they themselves do.
The other thing that happens is Alyce meets an imprisoned fairy. He can’t (or won’t) say much about himself or the reasons for his imprisonment, but he tells Alyce that she doesn’t begin to understand what her power can really do … and he’s willing to teach her.
This was an engrossing book, and a difficult one. Alyce is certainly the protagonist, and while I fully empathize with her, I can’t like her. She has a distinct cruel streak, and is simultaneously certain of her own status as a monster and resentful of not being properly appreciated. But she comes by it honestly - she’s been treated as a monster since she was a baby and (after much debate) allowed to live. Aurora is a wonderful character, and about the only one in this book I unreservedly like, and her having to go through everything she is put through in the name of breaking the curse is rather horrible to read. The author doesn’t shy away at all from the fact that getting kissed whether she wants to or not is sexual assault, and Aurora’s misery and sheer exhaustion comes through very well.
The pacing is a little slow, at first, but that picks up as the story goes. It ends in a way that I did not expect. It was an excellent ending, but holy hell do I not want to have to wait for the sequel.