Warning: There will be spoilers!
The Disney Twisted Tales series has been a successful hit! There are several books in the Twisted Tale series including Disney characters such as Aladdin, Aurora, Belle, Mulan, Ariel, Snow White, Anna and Elsa, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and others who make their debut in a novel of their own. These novels start with the same story up until a major plot point and then they veer off by asking the question that starts with two little words we are so familiar with: “What if…”.
For the Twisted Tale series, “What if” is answered and the story goes on (without a hitch) but the story is not quite the same as before the “what if” was asked and then answered. These stories are all written by different authors, although you may see the same author wrote another book in the series. With colorful and inviting covers, these books promise to hold a new story in them than the originals we all love and know by heart.
Disney Twisted Tales Book Series: Summary
This Disney Twisted Tales review will discuss Tiana. Tiana is a more recent Disney Princess who joined the scene in 2009 with Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. In this movie, there was a famous song called Almost There, which is where the book derives its title from Disney’s Twisted Tale. Almost There speaks to the readers that Tiana is about to achieve her dream of owning a restaurant. In this tale, the trip down the bayou happens and it goes all the way to the end of the movie where Dr. Facilier offers Tiana everything she ever dreamed about- including her Daddy living again.
This deal makes Tiana hesitate for a moment longer than in the movie. This is the part where the story becomes, well, twisted. This is a bargain where she has to give up Naveen and his love, for her long-lost Daddy and his love. She would still have Charlotte, but her family would be whole again. Tiana takes the bait and so she gets her restaurant along with her daddy working beside her in the kitchen. Her dream was complete. Everything is as it was supposed to be. Or was it?
With Naveen pushed to the background and working for Big Daddy, Charlotte’s father, Naveen has his business ventures on his mind. His mind is on Tiana, though and he wants to get to know her better if only she will let him close. But she is stubborn and hard to catch. Despite the best of her efforts, Tiana finds herself drawn to Naveen too. But only for a short while. The Shadow Man, Dr. Facilier, was always watched by Tiana. And part of the bargain was that she was not to have contact with Naveen. Tiana is torn between her love for Naveen and her love for her daddy. But she can’t bear to let her daddy go.
Disney Twisted Tales Book Series: Review
Tiana eventually does let her daddy go– a year after her original bargain with Dr. Facilier. It is not without tears, but Tiana is now free to go to Naveen. Tiana and her friends, Louis (who was turned into and remained a human in the book), Charlotte or Lottie, as she is known, and Naveen band together and defeat the Shadow Man. The voodoo Shadow Man was practicing left him in so much debt to the “spirits” that they took his soul instead. The whole time he was trying to trick Tiana into signing another contract to take her soul instead of his. Fortunately, this did not work out.
I liked this book pretty well, but I will say that it failed to always capture my interest to the last page. It was an effective page-turner up until the last half. Then it seemed to drag out a bit. The Twisted Tales Almost There had a good ending though. Tiana wound up with her dream coming true with Naveen by her side and her restaurant flourishing, just like the movie. Even though she lost her daddy, she still got another year with him by her side so it’s like she got to live two versions of her dream, but not at the same time.
Another weird part in Almost There was when Tiana fought Dr. Facilier at the very end. She followed him into the dark house and then suddenly the shadows took Dr. Facilier. She tricked him into signing a document that stated his soul would be taken instead. That part was pretty cool how she tricked him, but it wasn’t particularly clever I thought. It almost felt like a letdown that Dr. Facilier was as easily taken care of as he was. I also expected the missing people that Dr. Facilier tied up in a room would be under a spell or something. But they were just tied up waiting to be untied. Nothing extraordinary there.
Disney Twisted Tales Book Series: Concluding Thoughts
So, what if Tiana made a deal that changed everything? Well as it happened, Tiana received an extra year with her father. And she was able to have Naveen too after her father passed. Really and truly if Tiana learned anything it’s not that she was Almost There. She was there twice. No, she couldn’t have both Naveen and her daddy at once, so in a sense being almost there is correct. But in another sense, Tiana did nothing but benefit from the Shadow Man’s demise as well as his bargains. Sure, there were some drawbacks to the bargains, but she continued being selfish until her father wasn’t able to cling to life anymore.
Would anyone else have done differently in her place?
Another thing that got me was more in the middle of the book, that Tiana did not meet up with Mama Odie technically the second time down the bayou. This time it was Lisette, a distant relative of Mama Odie’s. She did not know magic, but she was kind of like an herbalist and was maybe more down-to-earth than Mama Odie was. However, it was strange that you had Lisette who couldn’t do what Mama Odie could, yet she was in the book. For what purpose? Beats me.
All in all, this was a good book. Yes, there were some flaws in it, but if you’re a lover of Disney, then Disney Twisted Tales Almost There won’t be a problem to swallow, flaws and all. Yes, I wish some things were done differently, but this is a momentous occasion to write a book off of a famous Disney movie and character and make it as good as the movie. That is going to be very hard to do.
However, I think overall Farrah Rochon did a wonderful job putting together this story won’t soon be forgotten even if it is the 13th installment of the Twisted Tales series.
So, did everything change? You decide when you pick up the book.
