A Long, Long Sleep

June 13, 2011
In this intriguing first novel, Rose Fitzroy, biologically 16 years old, comes out of stasis to discover that her billionaire parents and the world she knew are long dead. Having survived the plague-ridden Dark Times, the Earth is doing quite well, with Rose's father's former company in charge of much of it. This puts Roseâthe sickly, shy, and self-hating daughter of overbearing parentsâin the unusual position of "waking up to discover she's the sole surviving heiress to an interplanetary empire." Before taking on any responsibilities, Rose simply wants to survive high school, make a few friends, and work on her art. Her plans are swiftly interrupted, though, when a strange, virtually unstoppable creature called a Plastine attempts to assassinate her. Aided by handsome Bren and blue-skinned alien hybrid Otto, schoolmates she develops crushes on, Rose must defeat the assassin, learn to live as an independent adult, and discover why her parents essentially abandoned her in stasis. With well-developed characters, a touch of romance, and a believable future that, for once, is not entirely dystopian, Sheehan's tale should please many readers. Ages 14âup.

December 1, 2011

Gr 8 Up-This original and imaginative retelling of "Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose" is set in a far future in which hover vehicles, cell phones worn around the neck, and retinal scans are routine. Rosalinda, "Rose," heir to a huge, interplanetary corporation called UniCorp, wakes up after being in stasis for 62 years and is still 16 years old. She's been awakened by a kiss from a boy, Bren, who found her stasis tube abandoned in the subbasement of their condo building. She's told that she slept through the Dark Times in which a plague decimated the population. She's mourning the loss of her boyfriend and her parents, who were killed in an airplane crash nine years after the Dark Times began. Rose feels like a freak and has a hard time adjusting to having been ripped from her own time. The only other person who understands is her classmate Otto, a human-alien hybrid with blue skin and the ability to communicate telepathically through touch. Rose has a crush on Bren but he's scared of her neediness and childlike behavior. Her life gets even more confusing after she's repeatedly attacked by a robot with orders to terminate her and she must fight for her life. Surprising plot twists abound as she discovers shocking family secrets. This debut novel doesn't shy away from exploring the dangers of powerful conglomerates and the ways technology can be abused, but, ultimately, it's a bittersweet story of lost love, dreams, and of finding one's place in the world.-Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2011

Sleeping Beauty wakes up to a future world where everyone she ever knew is gone.

Dramatic disasters, diseases and technological advancements have passed during Rosalinda Fitzroy's decades of sleep. In her new role as long-lost heiress to the interplanetary business empire UniCorp, she faces a new world without her family or boyfriend. History lessons hit too close to home at school, and she fails to connect with anyone but Bren, the son of top UniCorp officials and discoverer of her stasis tube, and Otto, the result an unethical UniCorp experiment. The science-fiction elements here are tantalizing but under-explored and under-utilized. Before Rose can fix the mistakes of her parents' company, she needs to fix their parenting mistakes. Rose's first-person narration paints the picture of a girl too accommodating and self-deprecating for her social position. Gradually, her quirks are explained through the mystery of her placement into stasis. Futuristic slang words jar, and the passages don't always mesh well—the all-too-possible descriptions of what went wrong while Rose slept are chilling but not always well-integrated into the story, and the breaks from Rose's point-of-view into that of a mysterious second character are forced. Assassination attempts against Rose feel tacked on to bump up the tension, though they are eventually tied into her emotional story arc.

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