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    Briar Rose
    Briar Rose
    Briar Rose
    Audiobook6 hours

    Briar Rose

    Written by Jane Yolen

    Narrated by Linda Stephens

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From one of America's most celebrated writers comes an exquisite and heartwrenching novel that no listener will forget. Jane Yolen takes the fairy tale of Briar Rose, the Sleeping Beauty, and tells it anew-set this time against the terrifying backdrop of the Holocaust. Briar Rose is easily Yolen's greatest accomplishment-blend of beautiful myth and dark history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 4, 2015
    ISBN9781490676791
    Briar Rose
    Author

    Jane Yolen

    Jane has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the twentieth century. She sets the highest standard for the industry, not only in the meaningful body of work she has created, but also in her support of fellow authors and artists. Her books range from the bestselling How Do Dinosaurs series to the Caldecott winning Owl Moon to popular novels such as The Devil’s Arithmetic, Snow in Summer, and The Young Merlin Trilogy, to award-winning books of poetry such as Grumbles from the Forest, and A Mirror to Nature. In all, she has written over 335 books (she’s lost count), won numerous awards (one even set her good coat on fire), and has been given six honorary doctorates in literature. For more information, please visit www.janeyolen.com. 

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    Reviews for Briar Rose

    4/5

    724 ratings64 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Although a YA book, this was VERY VERY well written, especially the latter part about the holocaust.I didn't hugely engage with the modern-day bulk of the book (though it wasnt bad, and IS aimed at 13+). Set in a middle class Jewish-American household, grandma is dying and leaves a secret to be uncovered by favourite granddaughter Becca.This takes her to Poland, the remains of the extermination camp at Chelmno, and an old man who remembers...After the fairly frothy teen narrative up till now, this is very dark and harrowing, and extremely powerful writing.
    • 3/5
      This interesting story was filled with mystery and intrigue. It was a journey through history and a recollection of some very sad times. I was captivated by the story and became eager to see how everything would tie together.

      I really thought the Author did a great job capturing the war feels in her historical retelling, but it lacked emotion. I expected to feel deeply, but it mostly just grazed the surface. I think what caused this disconnect was the flow and writing style. I often became confused as to who was telling which parts and what exactly was going on. It didn’t ruin the story, but it definitely impacted the essence.

      Overall, I think there are better reads on this subject matter that pack the gut punch I like with historicals. It’s worth a read if you like mysteries. but don’t expect much in the ways of epicness.
    • 3/5
      This is not a book you 'really like' because it deals with the holocaust. That said, it was a well written and interesting take on fairy tales and their purpose in society. The story is well told and horrifying, the more so for its elements of truth.
    • 4/5
      I thought the actual Holocaust portion of the story was well-written, but the characters in the modern part felt flat and annoying.
    • 3/5
      Good World War II story about a death camp that you often don't hear about.
    • 5/5
      Unforgettable. Undeniable. Tragically Beautiful. If you haven't read this yet, do it, soon!
    • 4/5
      This is a superb book. It was written as part of the Modern Fairy Tales" series where modern authors re-tell a fairy tale in whatever way suits them (Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia Wrede is another example), and what Jane Yolen does to tell a story of the Holocaust is just astounding.

      It's dark and difficult, especially as the mystery of the modern-day Briar Rose comes out, but it is truly worth reading. I should re-read it . . ."
    • 5/5
      This was a truly beautiful and moving tale of one granddaughter's search to better understand the history of her grandmother. It incorporates the tale of Sleeping Beauty in such a way that one is taken aback for a second and then applauds Yolen for doing something that most authors would simply be unable to do and that is breathe new life into this classical tale. She weaves her story in such a manner that you start to feel that you are actually on a journey with the characters to discover every single moment of Gemma's (the grandmother) life. This is a book I would recommend to anyone that wants a truly wonderful read. You will learn from this book about some of our actual history as the human race and you will be changed for the better as a result.
    • 4/5
      Becca is Gemma's youngest granddaughter and on Gemma's death bead she makes Becca promise to find Briar Rose’s castle because it is all she has to leave her. While Becca and her three sisters were growing up Gemma had always told them the story of Briar Rose and even went so far as to claim to be Briar Rose herself. This book interweaves Gemma’s retelling of the Briar Rose tale with Becca’s search for the past in an interesting way. Readers get to experience both Becca’s childhood through the retelling, her adulthood search into Gemma’s past and eventually follow Becca to Poland where she learns Gemma’s history which is beautifully adapted into a dark modern Sleeping Beauty tale, much closer to the Brothers Grimm’s dark original then the modern sanitized version that people usually remember.
    • 4/5
      Unlike her older sisters, twenty-something Becca has always loved the story of Briar Rose as it was told by her grandmother “Gemma”. Just before Gemma died, she told Becca “I am Briar Rose.” Gemma extracted Becca's promise to find the castle and the prince. After Gemma's death, her family realized how little they knew about her background before she arrived in the United States. They weren't even sure of her name. With the encouragement of her editor, Becca puts her journalistic skills to work as she tries to discover Gemma's origins. Her search takes Becca to some surprising places and uncovers some harsh truths.Although the subject matter is heavy, Yolen doesn't lose sight of her YA audience. The “light at the end of the tunnel” is in view even in the darkest parts of the story. It wouldn't be a fairy tale without the possibility of “happily ever after”! The novel loses its momentum during Josef's story. It takes 3 ½ chapters to get to the point where he met Gemma. I had grown impatient by then. While the Nazi persecution of groups other than Jews (Josef was homosexual) will be of interest to many, that isn't Gemma's story. The shift in focus seems out of place.
    • 5/5
      Don't let this book fool you. It may be young adult. It may be a quick read, but the subject matter and the crafty way in which it was written is absolutely brilliant. On her deathbed, Grandma "Gemma" makes youngest granddaughter, Becca, promise to learn the story of Gemma's past. She claims to be the real Briar Rose. Along with her two older sisters, Becca has heard the fairy tale of Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty all her life. It's the only bedtime story Gemma would ever tell. Now Becca believes there is some similarities between the princess and her very own grandmother. Could Gemma really be Sleeping Beauty? Keeping the promise she made to her grandmother and with the help of a journalist friend, Becca sets out to uncover the mystery. The clues take her to Poland, specifically Chelmno, Hitler's extermination camp during the Holocaust. Becca meets Josef Potacki and the pieces fall into place. Woven throughout Becca's story is Gemma's bedtime story and Josef's story of survival. The present and past mesh together to tell a deeply moving tale of courage and love.
    • 5/5
      You know, when I picked this up I don't know what I was expecting to be honest. Sleeping Beauty retelling ticked my fairytale obsession, Holocaust twist ticked my history and originality boxes and the fact it was well written and engaging just made everything better after the last few books.

      Despite my positivity going in, I just didn't expect to get so wrapped up in this and to feel that bad at times, and that desperate for answers at others. The basic premise is that Becca makes a promise to her grandma 'Gemma' on her deathbed to find out about the princess that she had grown up being told about, Her grandmother had an obsession with the story Sleeping Beauty - and obsession that survived multiple tellings, her grand children's growing apathy with the tale and even dementia and through it all the facts of the story never changed. Briar Rose's castle was cursed by the evil fairy with the black books and the hat with the eagles on it, she was eventually rescued by the prince, she was kissed and no one else in the castle woke up afterwards.

      I don't want to spoil anything, but the tie in with the Holocaust is harrowing and extremely well thought out. This is essentially a fairytale without a happy ending because of what happened, and as we watch Becca try and find out information on her grandmother and try and trace this information on so few clues, you can't help but think about how many stories like this there may have been.

      There are mentions of events, what would happen in camps, that seem like the stuff of nightmares, but we all know they happened but even so you just think how relatively recently all that happened. I think of my own family, my grandmother who was interned at a 'work' camp during the war and I'm not going to lie, it actually makes me want to try and find out everything I can because it's something I want to know because even though you can't change what happened, I kinda want to understand it better and like Becca in this story, it reminds me that sometimes it's not the ending that matters, but the fact that there is an actual story there that deserves to be known.

      Not everything is tied up in a nice little package in this book - not every question is answered, not every mystery is solved, but somehow, despite the fact you want to know it all, what you do learn feels enough.

      I highly recommend this for anyone who has any sort of interest in either of these subjects. I know it's marketed as a young adult book - but it's really so much more than that.
    • 4/5
      Ever since Becca can remember her “Gemma” (Grandma) told her and her sisters the story of Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty). It was only when Gemma was older and dying that Becca realized that Gemma believed that she was Briar Rose. Neither Becca nor any of her family really know much about Gemma's history, so when Gemma dies, Becca is determined to find out. I really enjoyed this. Jane Yolen is an expert on fairy tales, and she tells the story well. I enjoyed the entire mystery behind Becca trying to figure out why Gemma would think she was Briar Rose, in addition to the Sleeping Beauty story that was finally told in this book. It did involve concentration camps and I was interested to see that a concentration camp I've recently visited (but hadn't heard of previous to my booking the tour to go there) – Sachsenhausen – was one of the camps one of the characters spent time in in this book.
    • 4/5
      4Q 4P This take on Sleeping Beauty will appeal to many teens.This book is a great take on the classic Sleeping Beauty fairytale though Terri Windling assures as in her introduction that if we're used to the Disney version we don't know Sleeping Beauty at all. At times the story was predictable and at other times events happened and characters appeared a little too conveniently but the overall storyline kept me going til the end. I just had to find out more about Gemma and her life. I loved the combination of Sleeping Beauty and the Holocaust. The two stories really melded well and softened the horrific blows that Yolen landed a little for readers.
    • 4/5
      Yolen creatively uses flashback (during alternating chapters) to reveal the fairy tale that "Gemma" repeatedly told her grandchildren when they were young. However, I would classify this book more as historical fiction than fantasy, as it accurately depicts some of the worst atrocities (Holocaust) known to humankind. Personally, I was both confused and disturbed by the inclusion of a violent and overly graphic sexual encounter (with his past lover) that the prince shares with Becca as he tells the story of how he came to know her grandmother. It just seemed unnecessary and completely out of context. Unfortunately, the inclusion of this relegates Briar Rose as a book (and a very intriguing one) for an older teen audience.
    • 4/5
      This book was a page-turner for me. Although it was a bit unrealistic and the dialogue may have been awkward at times (as noted by other reviewers), I thought that it spun the tale of a horrifying Holocaust experience in a unusual and engaging way. I was able to suspend disbelief and enjoy the flow of the words; I also became attached to the story's characters. It did what a good book should - it made me, the reader, want to find out more.
    • 4/5
      This review can also be found at: Written Permission

      While I was reading this book, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had read it before. But I can't actually remember reading it. Which means I either haven't ever read Briar Rose, or it was so long ago that I don't remember.

      I am not sure why, other than length and the fairy tale aspect, this book would be recommended for anyone under the teenage mark. It deals with some pretty heavy subject matter, as books about the Holocaust tend to.

      This story was fairly heavy. I am enthralled with anything Holocaust related, so when I learned that this book entwined the story of Sleeping Beauty and the horror of the Holocaust, I had to read it. Briar Rose didn't disappoint.

      There were times when I wanted to beat the characters over the head for their apparent stupidity. You are Jewish. You are researching your grandmother, who apparently has no past... and you can't put two and two together without having to have someone else spell it out for you? It was maddening to me.

      That, combined with some editing inconsistencies (Aron and Aaron, both referring to the same person. As well as Potoki and Potocki) lessened my enjoyment of the book somewhat.

      However, the plot drew me in. The sadness and longing to know about Gemma and the family history was very palpable. And when Gemma's story was being told, my heart broke, as it usually does when I read about the terrible things that happened while Hitler was in power.

      Bottom Line: I really enjoyed this book, and I think I have actually read it before. There is no magic or fairy tale retelling with it, though, so if that is your expectation, then best look elsewhere.
    • 3/5
      The first hundred or so pages of this novella is really just a frame story for the last seventy. Nevertheless it was fairly compelling throughout, and definitely a meaningful addition to the body of Holocaust literature.

      It's interesting that this book was published as fantasy, which it isn't really. Also that it's won awards (and in my library, was labelled, although not shelved) as a YA novel. In her very good introduction to the "Fairy Tale Series" under which this this was published, Terri Windling quotes Tolkien in saying that the fairy tale became the domain of children "primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused." I think Holocaust literature, and in general the literature of many dark chapters in history, has suffered this fate - if not actually misused, it's something you read when you're young because it's educational, but not something grown people are expected to think about.

      Finally, the premise of the book reminded me of the quote, "To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric." On one hand, the book shows the process of creating art in response to the Holocaust as being empowering. On the other, how much did the fairy tale thread really add to the story? Yolen says at the end that no woman survived Chelmno and that "happy-ever-after is a fairy tale notion, not history." So is Briar Rose really a fantasy after all? Hmm.
    • 5/5
      A brilliant "retelling" of "Briar Rose" ("Sleeping Beauty") with a fascinating twist. Yolen turns the almost-tragedy of the sleeping princess into a family mystery about a young woman searching for her family's roots in WWII-era Poland. What she learns about her grandmother's past -- and about the atrocities she survived -- makes for gripping and moving reading. This is a triumphant novel, but also a personal one, the rare book that is powerful on several levels.
    • 5/5
      I know this is supposed to be "Teen Fiction" but as an adult women's fiction writer and a women's/literary reader... I'd say this.

      Read it. I read this book 25 years ago. And still. to this very day, I think about it. The soft, tragic beauty of it. The lasting breath of a story. That's the true measure of a novel.
    • 4/5
      A young american woman discovers that her grandother was no-one else but the Sleeping beauty. Not from a fairytale but from the nazi-invaded Poland. Beautiful story just a little short for me.... :-)
    • 4/5
      Briar Rose is the story of a twenty three year old girl who makes a promise to her dying grandmother, Gemma. Over the years, Gemma has retold the story of Briar Rose over and over again, and has insisted that she herself is Briar Rose. On her deathbed, she makes Becca promise that she will go find her castle and the Prince that kissed her awake. This leads Becca on a journey to discover exactly who her grandmother was. Jane Yolen had a very unique idea. She juxtaposed the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty with the Holocaust. This combined to create a distinctive novel. This book was extremely compelling, though difficult to read at some times. Most people are aware of the horrors of the Holocaust, but I think Becca found it very difficult to imagine her beloved Gemma in the middle of them. I don’t know if I would classify this as a young adult novel just because some of the thematic elements are a little more mature, but I don’t think it would be inappropriate for teenagers to read it. My favourite part was the second section when she actually learns more about Gemma and everything she went through. However, I still thought there was a lot left untold about her. I think everything left untold was very true to Gemma however since her life was always such a mystery. It makes sense that there would be a little mystery left at the end of the story too.I did think that Becca’s romantic story was kind of an afterthought and the novel didn’t really need her to have a love interest. However, all in all, this is an extremely gripping novel and I definitely recommend it.
    • 3/5
      One of Terri Windling's "The Fairy Tale Series" which reinterprets popular children's fairy tales by associating them with historical or current events. Briar Rose is a solid contribution to the series and attempts to help young readers approach and access the horror of the Holocaust. While most of the characterizations were believable especially Becca, Stan, and Potocki, Becca's older sisters are overly exaggerated and belong in a reinterpretation of Cinderella. (Read this book to see what I mean.)Definitely worth reading!
    • 5/5
      I remember feeling rather stunned when I first read this book. It's a re-imagining of the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty--the German version collected by the Brothers Grimm is known as "Briar Rose." I do love literate adaptations of these sorts of stories which, as the introduction to the book notes, are darker and more complex than their Disney versions. The story begins and ends with Gemma telling the tale to her young grandchildren, and the telling is interspersed throughout, with very individual touches not found in the traditional versions. When she's dying, Gemma claims that she is Briar Rose, and asks her now grown granddaughter Becca to find her castle and her prince. Becca goes in search of her grandmother's story and finds it's intertwined with the Holocaust. I think what I found so particularly brilliant upon first (and even second) read was how well the details fit, giving a modern gloss to a centuries old story. And that modern horror tale is heart-rending--I think all the more because before reading this, I had never heard of this particular corner of the tragedy. We've all heard of Auschwitz; I'd never heard of Chelmno. Some reviewers--in fact both the negative ones I've read--complain of scenes depicting homosexuality not appropriate for younger readers--the book is marketed towards teens. Coming fresh from reading the story, this puzzled me, because I couldn't remember anything graphic or objectionable. Going back, I could find only one sentence that could be seen as close to explicit ("They made love during Hitler's victory speech, a horrible angry, passionate thrusting that left Josef bruised and somewhat stunned.") Would anyone object to teens reading that sentence if it were a man and a woman depicted? And Hitler's persecution of homosexuals is history, and for that very reason I don't think anything that should be glossed over or that I thought intrusive or forced on the story. Frankly, there was far more disturbing material in the book than what could be seen as in any way sexual. Indeed aspects are downright creepy--but not out of keeping of either the dark nature of original fairy tales nor the horrors of the Holocaust. I found this novel both engrossing and fast-moving--I read this in one sitting.
    • 4/5
      A well-told tale that starts gently with a fairy story that starts reaching into the past and gradually becomes a mystery story as Becca searches for the tale of her grandmother's early life.Although we realise fairly early on that the story will link back to the Holocaust, it's still shocking to be reminded of the bare facts of the era. Yolen handles this well, making us feel the horror, but without giving you nightmares.There's a careful understanding of human nature, both of the way the partisans dealt (or didn't deal) with their inability to make an impact, and also the inescapable fact that there were people who accepted and even approved of what was happening.I like the way Yolen gives and ending that allows us to understand that a person can be happy even without the traditional 'happy ending'.I'd definitely recommend this book, though I'm not sure that I'd want to read it twice - the story will linger in my mind for a long time.
    • 3/5
      The idea is undeniably intriguing: a modern-day story about a young woman searching for her grandmother's past, with only the tiniest of clues and a fairy tale to guide her. As a pitch, I buy it. Even in the first few chapters of the novel, as it becomes rapidly clear that this will be a Holocaust story, I'm willing to follow Becca on her journey to dig deeper and deeper into a past she doesn't really understand. Once she gets to Poland, however, things become a lot less appealing - not because of the content but because the author's writing style is so limiting. Yolen may have intended this as an adult or adolescent novel, but her writing style keeps the reader from ever buying into it completely. Most of the time I felt like I was reading a book for twelve-year-olds, with brief references to "soft core movies" and "lesbian relationships" to (supposedly) make it feel adult. It's awkward, but as long as Becca stays in America, it's okay. Once she reaches Poland, though, Yolen's style goes into overkill: she seems to feel a relentless need to *explain* everything that happens in Poland, from names to terms to the truly irritating meta-device of Becca constantly correcting her host's broken English. (It doesn't do anything for your sympathy toward the protagonist, either.) The story of her grandmother's past - once she finds it - is certainly interesting, but it reads like a giant plot online: despite being "told" to the protagonist, the flashback is written in third person, with primarily reported dialogue. That really doesn't do anything to maintain my interest, so while I started the book very intrigued, I limped toward the finish - all the while wishing a more skilled writer had taken on the same story.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Becca's grandmother was always an excellent storyteller, but there was only one story she'd tell - the fairy tale of Briar Rose. Just before she dies, she claims that she is the real Briar Rose from the story, and makes Becca promise to find out the truth of her history. The rest of her family dismisses her claims, but armed with only a small box of her grandmother's papers that detail her immigration to the U.S. in 1944, Becca goes in search of the truth - a quest that will lead her to Poland, and to one of the unspeakable atrocities of history.Review: With the exception of getting up to make myself a second cup of tea, I devoured this book in a single sitting. It pulled me in very quickly, and was nearly impossible to put down. It's admittedly a quick read - YA-level prose, large font - but I felt like it was glued to my hands for the few hours it took me to read; I came out of it with a crick in my back because I was too absorbed in reading to even shift in my chair. I love fairy tale re-tellings in general, and I particularly love versions that give a plausible real-life basis for the stories. This one didn't quite provide an origin story - Sleeping Beauty was already hundreds of years old by the time WWII came around - but it was chillingly effective in the way it melded the fantasy elements of the story with unflinching horror of reality. I mean, I like my fairy tales dark, but wow. That said, there were times in this book when I was left wanting more. It may have been that the adult protagonist or the seriousness of the story line led me to expect an adult novel rather than the YA it was, but there were times when things felt a little thin. The character development is not this book's strong suit - even the protagonist is pretty two-dimensional, and her love-story is pretty weak, and felt like a late addition. I also thought the investigation was under-done, and it left me wanting more actual sleuthing; it seemed like Becca went to Europe and just accidentally happened to bump into the one and only person who could tell her the real story. Still, I get that these elements aren't necessarily the stars of the show: the focus is on the fairy tale, and that part succeeds admirably. 4 out of 5 stars.Recommendation: Fans of fairy tales and fairy tale retellings, as well as WWII fiction buffs should all definitely check this one out.
    • 5/5
      An entry in The Fairy Tale Series which offers another reconstruction of an old favorite tale. The main character is Becca, who grew up listening to her grandmother's peculiar version of "Sleeping Beauty". Even as an adult, she still believed some small part of the story was truth. When her grandmother passes away, she makes Becca promise to find the castle, because Briar Rose was not just an invention of storytelling, but her grandmother herself. Becca promises, in spite of her older sisters' skepticism. Her research takes her to Poland, the original home of her grandmother, and straight into her grandmother's history during the Holocaust. She learns that the story is true, at least on a symbolic level. Becca learns more about her Jewish grandmother's true past than she ever suspected was there, a tragic fairy tale played out against the horrific background of the Holocaust. This was one of the earlier fairy tale retellings that I had read, and it was entirely unexpected to me, in its bittersweet loveliness and originality. The setting of the Holocaust is immediately wrenching - I am forever horrified at the potential cruelty of humanity presented in that war. The heroes of such a nightmare are stories in their own right, and meshing their lives with a fairy tale magnifies their contribution into legends. Blending a gruesome reality with a sweet love story (which can be gruesome in itself and this story mines that potential) of sleeping beauty presents fascinating possibilities that Yolen exploits in this novel. This book deeply touched me by its beauty, and made me cry with its sadness, a fantastic example of how great a story a fairy tale retelling can be.
    • 5/5
      This book was fantastic! I knew right of the bat I was going to like it, just by the way it was written and the characters developed. The story begins with a grandmother (called Gemma because her granddaughters couldn't pronounce 'grandma') telling for what we can tell is perhaps the millionth time, the story of Sleeping Beauty. What the story's protagonist called "Seepin' Boot". :] I smiled. I cried. I was very interested. All in all, this is definitely a good read in my book, one that I will have to add to my 'to buy' mental list. I was completely unsure how the author would be able to pull off a Holocaust story, with a bit of fairytale twist (really now, doesn't it just sound contradictory?). But it was successful. One line that made me chuckle: "She went to bed finished only a few pages of McKinley's Beauty, a book she read whenever she felt troubled" (92). The direct reference to a well-revered fairytale retelling made me want to redouble my efforts to read Beauty. I will have to check out more in this Terri Windling Fairy-Tale Series as well as more work by Jane Yolen. I have always had the notion to get my hands on a copy of her novella The Devil's Arithmetic.
    • 5/5
      Booklist:Part of the Fairy Tale series created by Terri Windling, Yolen's recasting of the Sleeping Beauty tale is not fantasy; rather, it is a story evocatively grounded in the horror of the Holocaust. Ever since Rebecca was a toddler, she and her two older sisters had heard a unique version of Sleeping Beauty over and over again from their beloved grandmother, Gemma, who insists that she is Briar Rose. Alternating chapters advance the fairy tale and Rebecca's experiences in trying to fulfill her promise made on Gemma's death bed to find the castle in the sleeping woods, which Gemma leaves to Rebecca. Rebecca's investigation takes her to her grandmother's native Poland, from which ~emerges a tale of Nazi brutality, gas chambers, partisan activity, courage, guilt, and love. Both heartbreaking and heartwarming, Yolen's novel is a compelling reminder of the Holocaust as well as a contemporary tale of secrets and romance.