A Long, Long Sleep - Anna Sheehan

[LeahSwenor]

Oh me, Oh my! I can't believe no one seems to have read this one!

Read from: 10/17/14 – 10/19/14

5 out of 5 stars.
Definitely in my top 5, possibly even top 3 favorite books to-date.
Wow.
Let me begin by saying, I really wasn’t expecting much out of this book at all when I first picked it up. I was in the library, liked the cover, and grabbed it on my way out since I was in a hurry. When I got home and read the synopsis on the inside flap I was less than impressed. “A robot is after her? really?” It seemed so cheesy. But, I decided to give it a chance anyway because I liked the sleeping beauty aspect of it and wanted to see what the author did with that.
Well, the first chapter was gripping enough to get me interested, the next chapter was enough to keep me interested, and the chapters after that were enough to make me fall in love.

A Long, Long Sleep is in a way, a modern sleeping beauty. It takes place in the distant future where Earth has formed interplanetary connections. Technology has increased and a mega corporation now holds most of the solar system’s power and money. The owners of the corporation have a daughter, Rosalinda Fitzroy, or Rose.
The book begins with Rose attempting to hold on to her stass (suspended animation) dreams , when she is awaken with a kiss. Bren, the boy who kissed her, had found her asleep in her stass tube and accidentally began the cycle that would bring her out of stasis. (And in his panic, afraid he had botched something, began revival breaths.)
Rose is shocked when she finds, upon waking, that she has been in stasis for sixty-two years. Her parents and her beloved Xavier are all long gone. Her parents have perished in an accident and she managed to miss something referred to as “The Dark Times”, which held a combination of a mass outbreak of tuberculosis , a resurgence of the black plague, and infertility caused by mutant corn. The combination of these things decreased the world population by millions.

Along with beautifully written characters, a creative and well formed world that seems to very realistically depict the future of earth, and incredible twists, this novel is incredible. Sheehan is a master and I look forward to her writing more books in the future.

I very rarely reread books, but this book will definitely be one that I will return to in the future, and one that I want a hard copy of to grace my bookshelves as well.

DISCLAIMER: THIS BOOK WILL MAKE YOU CRY.
I have never cried at a book, but this story is so tragic and touching, I was struggling to read the last few pages.