“I wonder what happens when you tell the same story again and again in a thousand overlapping realities, like a pen retracing the same words over and over on the page.”

A Spindle Splintered is a modern feminist take on the fable Sleeping Beauty.

Zinnia just turned 21 and she has a disease called Generalized Roseville Malady, and no one with that disease has ever lived past 21. Thinking she is going to die soon, Zinnia’s best friend Charm throws her a Sleeping Beauty-themed birthday party in an old tower complete with a spinning wheel.

When Zinnia pricks her finger on the spindle, she sees a vision of many different girls reaching for the inevitability of that spindle. Zinnia tries so save another sleeping beauty and ends up being rescued by others.

It is a slightly familiar, yet strange and different tale that is so interesting.