Jo Burdett's Book Review...

A Kiss in Time By Alex Flinn

** Stars

A Kiss in Time is a retelling of the sleeping beauty story. Beautiful, Charming, Intelligent, and anything but modest Princess Talia is cursed by the evil witch Malvolia into touching a spindle on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. As the original story goes, instead of dying, the princess and her kingdom fall into a deep slumber, and a huge hedge grows around the kingdom, shielding it from the world. Three Hundred years pass as the kingdom sleeps. The point of view for the story changes to Jack O’Neill. Jack is on a tour of Europe, not enjoying himself very much. He has the attitude of a normal teenager, and thinks his parents sent him away so they can figure out what they want to do with him. When the reader meets jack, he’s coaxing his friend out of bed, and getting ready to dump the tour for the day, and go off adventuring. After a fight with the French doorman about how to get to the nearby beach, and getting the wrong directions, Jack and his friend Travis end up infront of a large hedge, the hedge that surrounds The Lost Kingdom of Euphrasia. The duo find Princess Talia asleep, and Jack wakes her up with a kiss.
The kiss is when all the trouble starts. Jack is thrown into the dungeon, Talia is blamed for the downfall of her fathers country, and Talia rescues Jack from the dungeons to ask that they run away together. Jack sells some of Talia jewels for Airfare, and the two fly home to America. The story plot moves quickly, but its thin. In some points, the author, Alex Flinn stretches the story of Sleeping Beauty too far. Talia faints and is visited by the evil Malvolia several times, almost to a point of redundancy. (And the fact that Jack thinks Talia is going crazy because he can’t see malvolia) Eventually, Talia returns to Euphrasia when her father appears at a newstation saying that the Princess of Euphrasia has gone missing. Upon Talia and Jacks return, Malvolia causes Talia to fall asleep again, and tests Jack with nightmares of his dad disapproval Jacks dream to be a landscaper. The Book ends happily, but leaves some things lacking.
Flinn tried to cram so many little details and things into the story, that it may have been better if she had made a sequel to this book. It may have worked better, and Flinn would have been able to add more to the plot, and make the plot move a little smoother. Talia’s whining and insisting that she is gorgeous and intelligent and completely modest is annoying, and tiring. Jack inability to care, and mild stupidity is equally annoying. I would recommend this book to someone who like retelling of classic fairytales, but for me, the fairytales are classic for a reason, and maybe the plots shouldn’t be messed with. For me, this book was not a winner, and I don’t think I’ll be reading any more retellings of Fairytales.