A Wicked Thing - Rhiannon Thomas

A Wicked Thing by Rhiannon Thomas
Series: A Wicked Thing #1
Published by HarperTeen on February 24, 2015
Pages: 352
Genres: Fantasy, Retellings

Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss

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Rhiannon Thomas's dazzling debut novel is a spellbinding reimagining of what happens after happily ever after. Vividly imagined scenes of action, romance, and political intrigue are seamlessly woven together to reveal a richly created world… and Sleeping Beauty as she's never been seen before.

One hundred years after falling asleep, Princess Aurora wakes up to the kiss of a handsome prince and a broken kingdom that has been dreaming of her return. All the books say that she should be living happily ever after. But as Aurora understands all too well, the truth is nothing like the fairy tale.

Her family is long dead. Her "true love" is a kind stranger. And her whole life has been planned out by political foes while she slept.

As Aurora struggles to make sense of her new world, she begins to fear that the curse has left its mark on her, a fiery and dangerous thing that might be as wicked as the witch who once ensnared her. With her wedding day drawing near, Aurora must make the ultimate decision on how to save her kingdom: marry the prince or run.

This book is the definition of fantasy fun or retelling fun or fairy tail fun idk whichever you want to name it, it was a fun ride. I don't know exactly why it was so fun to just sit and read this book, honestly most of the characters didn't feel all that fleshed out, the plot only started happening at the very ending of the book and there wasn't all that much fantasy to keep me distracted from this flaws, yet while I was reading I kept wanting to pick it up everytime I put it down and now that I finished I found myself wanting the sequel.

Probably the biggest reason for this is Aurora, our princess is nothing like the one from Sleeping Beauty, she just waked up and is confused as hell, everyone she knows is dead and she isn't very found of the idea of marrying some random guy that woke her from her sleep after kissing her, soon she finds out that isn't only for her that she needs to worry but for all her kingdom and who can she trust? I have to say that I liked Aurora, and this was probably one of the reasons that this book didn't dragged for me - even on the middle, when she still doesn't know who to trust and is confused with the current politics of her kingdom and is still figuring out what happened after her curse -, I just always felt her confusion really genuine and liked the fact that despite that she goes on search for answers.

The other characters, unfortunately, didn't felt as real - especially the boys. We have the prince who kissed her awake, Rodric, which I liked he always managed to make me smile on his interactions with Aurora mostly because he was so shy and awkward around her, he is the clear good guy and only wants what is best for his kingdom. Then, there is Tristan, the guy who works on a pub and is the definition of everything Aurora can't have being a princess, he mostly annoyed me they interactions and sudden interest on each other felt fake and forced and I couldn't care for Aurora day dreaming about him. And the visiting prince, Finnegan, which was the one that most interested me, he is ironic and that bad boy type, you know with secrets and maybe he is bad or maybe he is good but who knows? Not me. Also there is a promise of dragons on his kingdom. DRAGONS I'M ALWAYS IN FOR DRAGONS.

For the world building we don't really get one, things are basically there and you have to roll with it, I don't really mind it because it's a retelling so I just imagined some medieval village of sorts but I would have liked a little bit more of descriptions of how the people of that land where, there was one scene with a sort of carnival that was cool, I would have liked more that - cultural things about this land, or geography, or anything really. The plot too wasn't really happening until 90% in and them it happened like it hadn't a yesterday and now I'm at wait of book two for centuries to come.

Recommend this book for readers that like retelling looking for a fresh take on the Sleeping Beauty tale, readers that like fantasy but want something more light or readers that don't usual read fantasy but would like to try it.