Part of Your World: A Twisted Tale Hardcover – September 4, 2018

Liz Braswell has done it again! She’s taken a favorite Disney movie of mine and gave it a nice good twist to see what could’ve happened had things gone wrong in The Little Mermaid. In Part of Your World, we learn how things would’ve been had Ursula won and Ariel lost everything. What’s so fun with these stories is how much could’ve changed with one little moment, though it wasn’t entirely clear why things didn’t play out like in the movie, I figure it was best not to think too hard on that because the point of this series is to give new endings!The book opens up five years after Ursula had won. Ariel was a voiceless mermaid trying to rule Atlantica while Ursula continued to be Vanessa with Ariel’s voice and Eric was kept in a hypnotized daze. This was how five years were spent. Then one day Scuttle and his great-granddaughter were watching a play that Eric wrote, one that had a very familiar story with a somewhat different ending. And it basically leads to Ariel returning to land once again in order to find her father who Scuttle discovered was still alive…in his polyp form.It becomes Ariel’s mission to find and rescue her father and return him to his throne under the sea, but she’s going to need some help in order to accomplish this and naturally, that help comes in many familiar faces.It was so much fun to read this one! I loved seeing what things could’ve been like had Ursula initially won. Things were definitely different in this scenario and it becomes clear who the real ruler of the castle is and sadly, it wasn’t Eric. Vanessa, as Ursula, had her own plans for the kingdom and surrounding kingdoms. Having not been allowed to rule under the sea, she decides she’ll take the next best thing and rule on land.For the first part of the book, Ariel has no voice and communicates with her friends with a form of sign language. It made me wonder how the story would progress without her talking, much like in the movie. But that gets cleared up rather quickly when Ursula’s spell breaks, but that was only a small step in her battle to come. It would be too hard to communicate with Eric and everyone else on land if she had no voice, so I was glad that Liz gave her her voice back early on.The story was told in many points of view from all the characters we already knew and love! For the most part though, the story was told from Ariel and Eric’s point of view and Ursula coming in at third. It was interesting getting all the different perspectives and made the ease of story-telling that much clearer.Another part that the Disney fan in me loved was how the title song gets mentioned! They don’t outright show you the lyrics but when Eric mentioned to Ariel, the song she sang when she rescued him and she sings is…totally was singing along! Another little bit that honestly had me grinning when it was mentioned, Ariel asked Eric how he couldn’t recognize her as the one who saved him and then when Ursula as Vanessa started singing, just fell for entirely! I won’t mention the outcome from that, but just that it gets said, had me grinning from ear to ear, because honestly Eric?!I felt like this was a well-paced novel too! Don’t let the near 500 pages alarm you! In the first day, which was slightly busy for me, I read over 100 pages and by the next I read over 200 leaving just another 100 for the last day. It’s a fairly quick read in a sense, one that had me turning the pages as fast as I could read them! It was so much fun being back in this world and seeing more of the world above Ariel, though I kind of want to see more under the sea now too! Lol!The ending was positively wonderful! It’s not quite the ending you would expect and yet, it totally works for the story! I feel like you can see what would happen down the line at some point, its open-endedness was something I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did. Part of Your World was a most magical read indeed! This is a book that Disney lovers are bound to enjoy!Overall Rating 5/5 stars

The Little mermaid is one my favorite Disney movies. Ariel has always been my favorite Disney princess, and she still is. I grew watching the little mermaid, I used to sing along with it all the time as a little girl. This is one of books in this series and I looked forward to reading the most. It arrived on time and came with the next book as well.

If you happen to be familiar with the animated work, the characters fill themselves in the story nicely here. If not, the writing is beautifully expressive:"She had the voice of the gods, some had said. The sort of voice that could lure landlubbers to sea and sailors to their deaths, a voice that could launch a thousand ships. She had the voice of the wind and the storm and the crash of the waves and the ancient speech of the whale. She had the voice of the moon as it glided serenely across the sky and the stars as they danced behind. She had the voice of the wind between the stars that mortals never heard, that rushed and blew and ushered in the beginning and end of time."The language is a step above the average Disney movie. I found myself using the dictionary feature of my Kindle quite often while reading, much to my delight.It feels true to the characters we love (and love to hate) while adding time and experience to them. And yes, of course visualizing it in animated form was easy.In the tradition of hidden Mickeys, there are subtle and not-so-subtle boss to other movies. Sly and fun.

One in a series of 18. A gift requested by granddaughter

This book takes place 5 years into the future from when Ariel lost her voice to the sea witch. Instead of the happily ever after ending like we see in the film, Ariel never regained her voice and Ursula (as Vanessa) is now the Princess of Trulia. Prince Eric has remained under her spell for 5 years - as well as members of his staff. Ursula is trying to rule the Dry World and trying to figure out how to destroy the Mer World. She still has King Triton as her prisoner.Ariel - now Queen of the Sea - has ruled in silence for 5 years. With the help of sign language, Sebastian and Flounder, she has kept the peace. But the time has come for her to try to return to the Dry World and rescue her father, and defeat Ursula. She has to figure out how to do all of this without being able to speak. Wtih the help of her friends - both on land and in the sea - she has a real chance of defeating the Sea Witch.This was another great installment of Disney's Dark Fairy Tales. This author is a great writer and story teller. We have really enjoyed the spin of some of our favorite Disney Classics. This one - at almost 500 pages - took us awhile to read (we only read a chapter or two a day) but it was worth it. It ended beautifully after a clever tale of heroes, friendship, and love. We are so glad we read it.

Perfect for anyone who loves the little mermaid story , or just loves the classic Disney stories we grew up with. The book is for young adults , no spice. I love that they give more depth to some of the more obvious and well known characters like Ariel, Eric, Grimsby,Carlotta but they also add new characters like Jona and Vereet who quickly gain a special place in your heart. No spoilers but I even love how the story ended.It starts a little slow but when it picked up it was hard to put down. I very much enjoyed it and looking forward to reading other “what if” series on classic Disney stories.

This book ties with or is perhaps a little ahead of the Twisted Tale of Frozen. The first three, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast were way too scary and dark. Frozen and the Little Mermaid were very well done. The ability to give just enough doubt about a win while staying true to the original story was so well struck in both that I am delightfully left spinning a bit about how well done the stories are. Simply charming.