Paige should have never agreed to do her best friend’s semester English project. Community service sucks. Especially when you have a major social life. But it’s that or possible expulsion from school. Reading to a boy in a coma is just plain creepy, but her English teacher somehow thinks her acting skills make it the perfect community service match.
But when she finds the boy’s journal hidden among his books, things turn from creepy to interesting. Very interesting. The boy who looked like death slowly comes alive as she reads his own words to him. And each day Paige is wishing more and more he would wake up.
*May Contain Spoilers*
Jean Haus brings a twist to the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, with her modern day version, Sleeping Handsome. As a lover of fairy tales, I've had this novella on my TBR list for quite sometime and finally found a couple of hours to read it.
The novella focuses on Paige, a teenager, queen bee, wanna-be actress who only acts full of herself so she can remain in the popular crowd. When she is required to do community service, she meets Zack. Zack is a fellow teenager who had an "accident" and is now in a coma.
At the beginning of the story, I highly disliked Paige. But as the novella continues, readers learn why she acts like a snotty b****, for lack of a more appropriate term. She wants to become an actress, so she decides that she can claim stake in the popular crowd as she works on her acting skills. But after meeting Zack, she starts to realize that you can't live your life for other people.
I loved the plot of this novel because it focused on Zack's journal, which Paige finds on his book shelf disguised as Frankenstein. The journal and how Paige reacts to it brings the reader into the lives of both teenagers.
The only dislike I have about the novella is that it is a novella. The scenes of the story are mainly set in Zack's bedroom. When Paige tells Zack about what's going on in her life, I wanted to read that too! Not just hear her tell Zack her side of what happened. Plus, the scenes that Zack's journal describes, I mean come on! Can we please do flashbacks?
This short book is an enchanting, mysterious read with great character development. But I wanted more! I'll have to look into the various novel length pieces that Jean Haus has written. I'm convinced that I'd love them.
Rating: 3/5 cups
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