This was a pretty good read. Definitely not a groundbreaking book or one that your life wouldn’t be complete without reading, but it was very entertaining.
Summary (with spoilers) for the next little bit.
Basically, Philip falls asleep upon kissing Aurora and enters into a shared dream with her and the rest of the kingdom that Maleficent has control over. Maleficent has warped their reality to think that this dream world is their lives, with memories from when they were young, but important details changed – namely, the fact that Maleficent is now their savior. As this facade starts to crack, Dream Aurora ventures out of the castle for the first time, where she meets up with Philip, and they both set off on a quest to get everyone out of there.
(Okay, summary over; un-spoiler time)
It’s an interesting premise to say the least, however I feel like all the Twisted Tale books have the restriction of trying to be “dark” while still being “appropriate.” I wish that Disney would allow this series to be YA books and have that extra grit to them that could make them truly memorable. Unfortunately, a lot of them just fall flat.
Despite that, I thought this book added a ton of depth to Aurora that just isn’t found in the movie (girl only got like 15 lines in the movie. She gets way more here.) On the flip side of this point, because we didn’t get to know much of our dear Rose in the movie, a lot of what she does in this book feels oddly out-of-character. She is very bent on letting everyone know there is more to her than a pretty-little-princess, whereas in the movie that seemed to be her only personality trait. I like that we got to see a new side of her, but I think I would have liked seeing her grow into this personality, instead of it being her personality that we apparently weren’t shown in the original film.
Philip is also a little too perfect, but he is that way in the movie so whatever.
One character I wish had been fleshed out a little more is the dear Maleficent. I’m one of around two people that actually thought the movie about her was alright…very interesting and thought-provoking to say the least, and I think this book could have taken a similar ‘misunderstood villain’ approach VERY easily…in fact, I was really expecting it for about 75% of the book. Unfortunately, she was allowed to be a pretty one-dimensional villain that was faking a three-dimensional personality throughout the book, which was probably the most disappointing part of the book to me.
Overall, I think this book, like each of the Twisted Tales books I’ve read so far, has a lot of unmatched potential, and I am hoping for good things to come from this series.
Amanda Roach 