Briar Rose

Gr 7 Up—Briar Rose has an overprotective mother and is forbidden interaction with pining childhood friend, Joshua Quinn, who unknowingly transferred a curse to Briar a decade ago. On her 16th birthday, Briar will fall asleep, never wake up, and die. Fortunately, best friend Reena and her gran Lily, hoodoo practitioners, provide this novel's "Hail Mary." Briar fights the curse, landing her in one looping nightmare of a car accident and finally into a steampunk-esque riff off the "Sleeping Beauty" tale, populated with flat archetypes and over-the-top elements. Oliver's novel has a lot going on: family feuds, contagious curses, crossroad spirits, steampunk alchemy, and traitorous Civil War ghosts. The unwieldy curse is certainly macabre and the twists centering on Aurora are unique (she's a brat and sells out her would-be saviors) and cleverly done. But it's not enough to make up for the stock characterization, cliché themes, and cringe-worthy (and dated) dialogue peppered with the likes of "dude," "hunk," "weenie," and "doofus."