Part of Your World: A Twisted Tale

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

One of my favourite twisted tales, loyal to the backstory of events and yet adds much more depth to the characters beyond our knowledge from the fairytale we were long accustomed to. Overall, an enjoyable read!

Good read . Interesting ideas and alternative ending.

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.

I was a little hesitant to pick up this latest read from Ms. Braswell. So far for me she has written one really good take in Twisted Tales, which was "Tale As Old As Time", based on "Beauty and the Beast". I devoured it eagerly once I got going with it. The first two, "A Whole New World" and "Once Upon A Dream" I did not enjoy as much. I barely made it through one third of each. So two misses, one hit. As I began "A Part of Your World", I originally had to fight the urge to put the book down for the first 50 or so pages. The opening was really dry, I am not gonna lie. But once I made it past it, the story was really well written. I love the interactions between Eric and Ursula once the whole Vanessa charade fell apart. Also love the interaction between Ariel and her old sister Attina. It was a relationship not really expanded upon in the film. Argent, the old apple seller, was also a welcome character. The book ends with a rather ambivelent ending, not giving us a definite resolution, but I still enjoyed it a lot. It would be a world I would like to visit again if so inclined. The opening made me give it 4 out of 5, but it was overall an enjoyable 90% awesome read.

Love this book

I loved this book. I've loved all the Twisted Tales books I've read so far. The Little Mermaid was my favorite movie was a kid and this retelling was fantastic

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.

I didnt like it i thought i was ganna read something fun but it was kinda depressing. I read on until chapter 7 or so and after that i just couldn't read it anymore.

Mas allá de la historia alternativa , que es interesante y de una redacción bastante fluida y digerible, una lectura ligera y disfrutable (ojo mas orientado hacia jóvenes adultos y adultos) ésta edición de pasta dura es excelente, la contraportada tiene un acabado aterciopelado y una calidad de impresión muy buena, el encuadernado es sobrio con pastas duras de color solido y sin tipografía alguna lo cual se agradece. Una muy buena adquisición para amantes de la lectura y aquellos que quieran practicar su lecto-comprensión en ingles.

Le encantó a mi sobrina

O título ja diz tudo! Uma verdadeira aventura! Eu amei de verdade a narrativa e l desenvolvimento dos personagens! Épico!

Love, love the Disney twisted tales as a young adult reader of fantasy and suspense. This is one of my favourites. Book arrived in perfect condition, not a blemish