A Long Long Sleep

by Anna Sheehan

I ran across this book at a local bookstore and thought the premise sounding interesting.  A Long Long Sleep is the story of Rosalinda Fitzroy who is awoken from a chemically-induced sleep by a kiss.  This futuristic version of Sleeping Beauty takes place some unspecified years in the future, after the US and the rest of the world has been devastated by outbreaks of tuberculosis, the plague and widespread infertility.  These "Dark Times" have passed, the US rebuilt itself, and Rosalinda slept through it all.  The world soon discovers that Rosalinda has been asleep for 62 years.  She finds herself in a world completely different from the one she knew.  Technology has changed, vocabulary is different and all the people she knew are dead.  Rose has a hard time adjusting to her new environment and life, and as she begins to learn and remember more about how she ended up in stasis for so long, she finds it hard to come to terms with the truth.

In the end this book is a little bittersweet, which I typically don't love.  However, I found the story to be pretty compelling, and I felt real sympathy for Rose.  While it's not exactly my favorite type of story, I think Anna Sheehan does a nice job of crafting a unique interpretation of Sleeping Beauty and creating a character that you feel for.