I went into this knowing three things: it was written by Neil Gaiman whom I would follow to the ends of the earth, it was illustrated by Chris Riddell whose art is familiar to me from the Edge Chronicles which I may now have to read, and it was a Sleeping Beauty retelling.

I was not expecting - okay, maybe I was a little bit hoping - to be so absolutely blown away by how beautiful, elegant, and stunning every facet of the work was from the story and the telling of it to the art and the gold accents. I now have to decide which book to remove from my top three of the year to add this gorgeous book.

Note, I've heard it most often referred to as a graphic novel and I think a much more apt description would be a picture book.