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Summary: Briar Rose Review
Review: This book was very moving, touching, and powerful. Briar Rose is a story of survivors and victims.The author, Jane Yolen, did a remarkable job of combining the horror of the Holocaust with the old myth of a fairy tale. The writing flowed beautifully from the past, with the telling of the tragedy in the concentration camps and Becca's childhood, to the present with the desparate search of Gemma's true story.
The vivid depictions Joseph Potocki gave of his struggle made one feel as if they suffered right along with him. When Potocki told Becca and Magda of how he and his companions found Gemma, the words jumped off the page. It appears that Becca's search for her grandmother's story came to a close after she spoke to Potocki. I thought that she would be excited about the news but it appears that it was bitter sweet. Briar Rose is a powerful book that is recommended.
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Summary: One of the most beautiful and moving books I have read
Review: I have been a fan of Jane Yolen for many, many years. This book is the perfect example why. She tells the story of the deep love between a young girl and her Polish grandmother Gitl, of whom very little is known. After her grandmother's death, our heroine (whose name I can't remember)becomes obsessed with uncovering the mystery of her grandmother's life. The only clues she has are a paltry collection of odds and ends that belonged to her grandmother, and her version of the fairy tale "Briar Rose" that she used to tell. The grandaughter travels to Poland and slowly begins to unravel the threads of her grandmother's past, and comes to a deeper understanding of herself, and of her place in her (mostly unsympathetic) family. My synopsis does not do justice to the lyrical beauty of Ms. Yolen's prose, or to the skillful way in which she weaves together the main plot and her retelling of the fairy tale "Briar Rose". Her handling of the Holocaust and the role it played in shaping Gitl is understated, but deeply moving all the same. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the book. A must read
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Summary: Briar Rose By Jane Yollen
Review: This is a wonderful book that really gets you guessing. If you are a fan of Sleeping Beauty or other fairy tales then this book is definetly for you. It tells a whole different tale, but at the same time, it is exactly the same. Expect the unexpected, and i garentee that you will be satisfied. This is not a ghost story, or a horror, but it is just as gripping. You will never forget the Hollocost or the pain all of those people went through, and you will never forget the characters in this amazing retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
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Summary: One of the most unique Sleeping Beauty tales ever written
Review: Briar Rose is a tale of Sleeping Beauty written in a different time and a different way of telling the story. In this story, the main character Becca made a promise to her grandmother, Gemma that she will solve the mystery of Gemma's secret identity and history. It was unclear as to why out of all the stories that she could tell, Gemma only told one repetitively, which was Briar Rose. When her granddaughters asked why, Gemma simply answered that she was the princess who had once lived in a castle in Briar Rose. Of course her 2 older granddaughters except for Becca thought she was crazy when she said that. But after Gemma's death, her mystery still remained unsolved and Becca was determined to solve it.This story not only retells the famous fairy tell of Sleeping Beauty, but also educates and reminds us all about the horror of the Holocaust. Although the author's writing style wasn't the best that I've read so far, I do love how she went from past to present in odd to even numbered chapters. Thus, after finishing the book, I was still pretty mesmerized by her descriptions of the towns, the dead people, the camps, and such.
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Summary: A very good read
Review: Briar Rose by Jane Yolen was an exciting book and normally kept me reading on to find out what would happen next. Some parts I skipped over, though because I didn't agree with the content. In the book, the character's grandmother leaves behind a box with old photos and papers that eventually end up telling her life story. She would always tell her version of the tale of Sleeping Beauty and no one would have ever realized she was actually telling her own tale of when she was taken to a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Her grandaughter takes a trip to Poland to unwind her past since she promised she would when her grandmother was on her deathbed, and plus, no one knew what her past was really like. I think the book was well-written and the author intwines the fairy tale nicely into the horror story of the Holocaust. I learned a lot reading this book and hope other readers enjoy it.
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Summary: Uh, Everyone is missing the obvious question
Review: The obvious question to this convoluted tale is why couldn't Gemma just say she'd been in a concentration camp? Why the story? Once the girls were old enough to understand. I mean, they learned about WW II and the Holocaust in school. It wasn't like this was a dark, deep mystery that no one knew about. That was the most ridiculous thing about the book. If Gemma wanted Becca to find "Briar Rose" then couldn't she just ask her? Or perhaps go back to Poland to find Josef herself? Why did she have to give "hints" and make this like a treasure hunt? This part made absolutely no sense to me at all, but I guess Yolen needed to make this somehow mysterious, or eerie. Also, didn't Becca's parents have a clue where Gemma was from? Certainly, they knew she was from Poland or Eastern Europe. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you're Jewish, and you're from Poland, and you arrived in the U.S. following WW II--chances are that you either spent the war hiding, or in a concentration camp! Sorry, but Yolen just stretches the imagination too much, that no one on earth could figure out that Gemma must have gone through some sort of experience, having lived in Europe during the war. And that no one knew anything about her, or could find out anything--hint, public records are available. I am really surprised that none of the reviewers have picked up on this. I'm surprised that Yolen couldn't have found a better ploy to weave this tale with, but the mystery just doesn't work.
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Summary: Happily ever after means exactly what it says...
Review: This isn't a story for the weak of stomach or weak of heart, or those looking for a tidy novelization of a Disney-esque Sleeping Beauty. In Briar Rose, Jane Yolen takes the traditional Sleeping Beauty in the Wood fairy tale and sets it in Poland during the reign of Hitler. Becca, granddaugher of Gemma, is haunted by the Sleeping Beauty story her grandmother told hundreds of times, and even struggled to tell on her deathbed. Gemma's last wish is that Becca will reclaim the castle and find the prince Gemma left behind half a century ago. The search takes Becca on a terrifying journey into a land torn by war, where innocent people are murdered and tortured simply for being Jewish, Romani, or homosexual. Yolen is quite explicit with descriptions of Holocaust atrocities that actually (unbelievably) happened. I read this book in one day and cried when the prince and his companions arrived at the deathcamp of Chelmno. Read this book, and please visit http://www.remember.org to learn more about the 11 million who died in concentration camps, to get an idea of what the places described in the book look like, and to prevent anything as awful as the Holocaust from happening ever again.
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Summary: Beautiful
Review: When I read this book, it took my breath away. Yolen did a beautiful job of combining the horrors of the Holocaust and the beauty of the fairy tale. It is to this day my favorite book of all time!!!
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Summary: BORING with a capital B
Review: I picked up this book because it looked really good. Most sleeping beauty type stories are, right? Well, it was a mistake. I tried (I really, really tried!) to keep reading the book, but I couldn't because of the extremely baffling plot and reason #1: it was BORING. I couldn't understand it and not far into the book, (about 5 pages!) I was wishing I had bought another book! I know I've got a pretty big attention span and I'm not a bad reader, but this was terrible. Not even worth thinking about getting. Horrible. ~Atalanta
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Summary: Briar DUMB
Review: I really was disappointed by this book. I head that it was really good and a great thing to read, but it turns out that it was positively terrible! The plot was completely baffling. I KNOW I'm not a bad reader, but just to be sure, I had my sister read it as well. She didn't get it either! Besides being confusing, it is pretty perverse. Take my advice - don't even open the cover of this book... you'll only be disappointed and disgusted.
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