Consenting Beauty

Consenting Beauty
by Patrick Fenis, Med Matey (illustrator)
 
Despite its picture-book format, Consenting Beauty is very much an adult satire. Patrick Fenis takes the familiar Sleeping Beauty story and turns it into a comedy of legal arguments, modern social debates, and fairy-tale absurdity, creating a book that is likely to amuse readers who enjoy parody and unconventional humor.
 
The premise is simple enough. A sleeping princess awaits the traditional kiss that is supposed to break her curse. Instead, the prince finds himself confronted by a series of attorneys and representatives who challenge whether he has the legal or ethical right to wake her at all. What follows is a steadily escalating debate involving consent, jurisdiction, age-of-consent laws, parental authority, and a host of other issues that pull the story further and further away from the classic fairy tale.
 
What makes the book work is its commitment to the joke. Rather than treating the legal arguments as a brief gag, the author follows the premise to increasingly ridiculous conclusions. Every time it seems the prince has found a solution, another obstacle appears, often in the form of a new character armed with yet another technicality. The result is less a retelling of Sleeping Beauty and more a satirical courtroom comedy disguised as a fairy tale.
 
The rhyming text keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, while Med Matey's illustrations help support the humor and maintain the lighthearted tone. Readers familiar with modern cultural debates will recognize many of the subjects being lampooned throughout the story. The book is clearly designed to provoke laughs through exaggeration, using a beloved fairy tale as the backdrop for commentary on contemporary social and legal discussions.
 
I found the funniest moments weren't necessarily the arguments about consent themselves, but the increasingly absurd rabbit holes the characters wander into. Questions of international borders, legal representation, and fairy-tale loopholes pile up until the entire situation becomes delightfully ridiculous.
 
Readers looking for a traditional fairy-tale retelling should know that this is not that book. Consenting Beauty is best approached as satire first and fairy tale second. Those who enjoy irreverent humor and stories willing to poke fun at both classic tropes and modern sensibilities will likely find plenty to enjoy in its pages.
 
Overall, Consenting Beauty offers a clever and unusual parody that takes a familiar story and examines it through a thoroughly modern, and intentionally absurd, lens.

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