ROYAL DIARIES: CATHERINE

Catherine's was the final Royal Diary, written in 2005. Kristiana Gregory wrote Cleopatra's and Eleanor's, which I enjoyed much more than this.

Catherine is an interesting character, a German girl who also speaks French, taken to live in Russia with her German betrothed, where she endures incredible stress. Her mother is an abusive social climber who clashes with the Empress Elizabeth, another strong woman whose whims Catherine must endure. And while she has a decent relationship with her betrothed, they're much more like brother and sister than anything else.

Like Cleopatra and Eleanor, this diary suffers because so much of what makes these women fascinating historical figures happened when they were adults. Gregory really phoned this one in, too, and it's so obvious. She gave Catherine a very annoying habit of not bothering to put the date on her entries, claiming often that she didn't know what day it was. Everything could have been done more in depth than it was. The epilogue is pitifully short and tells very little. The Life in Russia section glosses over Peter's "mistress" and his assassination. And the final two pages are devoted to events that are happening elsewhere at the same time as Catherine's reign.

I'm not sure why Royal Diaries chose to go out with this offering. It's quite pitiful. The interesting moments are eclipsed by sheer frustration at other issues. I wouldn't recommend this unless you're a completist.

Disney's Twisted Tales: A Whole New World

Liz Braswell's A Twisted Tale series takes the Disney movies we know and love and gives them a "what if?" that results in a much darker storyline. These books are for older Disney fans. I mean, yeah, Disney has some twisted stuff to begin with, but kids really don't need the amped up dark Aladdin where multiple movie characters don't make it. Wait 'til they're a bit older. Or it'd be okay for more mature kids. I dunno. Use your best judgment. But I'm 37 and I read a lot of horror and some of the scenes in this were still jarring.

A Whole New World's back cover asks "What If Aladdin Had Never Found the Lamp?" However, that's a bit misleading. He does still find the lamp. The problem is that he doesn't keep it. The real theme here is "What If Jafar Possessed the Lamp?"

Well, you can figure out the answer to that. Bad shit happens.

Aladdin is the most unchanged character in this book. Genie is much different, in a sad, more realistic way. Jasmine has much darker tones, which I actually like. Abu is not comic relief. Instead, he and Carpet just aren't in it much. Neither is Genie for that matter. He still has some funny lines, but he's barely onscreen and he's got several serious moments. Rajah has more tigery moments. Nobody feels really out of character though. They fit with the different setting of the novel.

I've had this since it came out way back in September, but I only just picked it up again today. It was a bit hard to get into, because the first several chapters mostly retell the movie we know. But after seeing the gorgeous cover for the third book in the series, where Belle's mom is the enchantress that curses Beast, I decided I needed to get back into this series. I finished that last Dear Canada book I reviewed and dug right into this. And I've only put it down briefly since I picked it back up again.

Braswell's writing is quite good and I enjoyed the new characters she added. The main two are fellow thieves from Aladdin's younger days: Duban and Morgiana. Both are characters from One Thousand and One Nights. Duban had his own tale and this new Duban isn't much like him, aside from being intelligent. Morgiana was the quick-witted slave from Ali Baba, and she is just as quick-witted here. I love this Morgiana. Other characters also borrow their names from the original tales.

I don't want to say too much about this, because I quite enjoyed it and I recommend people read it, so I don't want to spoil anything. I like letting people watch the story unfold on their own. But be warned, this is darker Disney than we're used to. It's not A Song of Ice and Fire-level, but characters we know and love from the movie do not make it all the way through the book.

I'll be started the second in the series later tonight. "What If Sleeping Beauty Never Woke Up?"

DEAR CANADA: WINTER OF PERIL

Oh, Sophie. This book is just odd.

First, there's Sophie's annoying habit of CAPITALIZING things for emphasis. She does this A LOT. It's pretty ANNOYING, even though it actually does feel like something someone her age would do. So realistic yet obnoxious? Yeah.

Second, there's her entire family situation. Her dad is some useless piece that fancies himself a poet and wants to go to Newfoundland and have everyone else just leave, so it's just him and his poor dragged along wife and child all alone in the wilderness. But he's USELESS, to borrow Sophie's convention, and he is barely any help. His wife is equally useless. Neither of them has much interest in Sophie. Apparently, rich UK people used to let servants raise their kids, which you know, whatever, but when you're dragging your daughter along to no man's land, you could at least TRY to connect with her some. Oh, dammit, the caps are kinda contagious. And they're not even rich themselves, they're just freeloading off Uncle Merchant. (His name is Thaddeus, but he's a rich merchant.) So poor Sophie has been raised to know how to do absolutely nothing for herself and is dragged along with her parents, who she has no connection with, to an empty place where she's surrounded by fishermen and a couple Irish families. She decides she wants to learn how to do things, so the entire book Sophie's skills save her family's ass and do they once thank her? I do not remember reading any sort of thanks. The epilogue is satisfying, because the mother, who has the painting bug, moves them to a larger nearby colony, and singlehandedly uses her painting skills to provide for the family, while Sophie also earns money and the father is still useless, but then Sophie returns to Mairie's Cove, marries the kid she liked the first time around and NEVER SEES HER AWFUL PARENTS AGAIN.

Third, there's not really all that much peril.

The Christmas story follow-up in A Season for Miracles is cute, because Sophie finally has a female friend her own age and she sticks up for her, against class differences and such.

Overall though, I would probably skip this one. The reason it's taken me so long to write this is because I just had to keep putting the book down due to not caring.

Catherine the Great's Royal Diary is up next, but I might take a little break from these series and switch to something else for a bit. We'll see!

STAR DARLINGS 9

I started out not liking this book. Tessa is embodying her stereotypical Taurian trait of stubbornness by not believing the speculation that it is Lady Stella herself who is sabotaging the SDs. The others have more split opinions. Scarlet and Cassie have teamed up and are searching for more information that will prove Ophelia was telling the truth and that it is Lady Stella. Sage is on Tessa's side, although that's only briefly mentioned. Leona actually sides with Scarlet, saying that she knew Ophelia best and didn't think she was lying.

Tessa decides to join Scarlet and Cassie's investigation, hoping to find proof that Lady Stella is innocent. However, she does this in a very underhanded and manipulative manner. She takes Cassie along with her to bake some cupcake things (I forget the Starland name) and actually holds the tray of finished cupcakes above Cassie's head and says Cassie can have as many as she wants if she tells Tessa what she and Scarlet are up to. She uses this tactic because it worked on Gemma when she was little. Yes, she not only does the asshole move of mocking someone's height, she treats Cassie like a little child. And the main reason she goes for this tactic instead of actually treating Cassie as a friend and equal? Because she got too wrapped up in fucking baking and forgot to say anything until now. So instead of doing it nicely, she decides to jump right into this behavior.

Tessa was already annoying me, because her main characteristics in the early chapters are her being easily distracted and disorganized, two things that don't exactly endear people to me. Then she pulled this crap with Cassie to make up for her own failings at investigating and I was pissed. It isn't Leona-level bad, but it's the second-worst thing I've seen any of these girls do.

However, Tessa has some cute bonding moments with Scarlet down in the caves and that made me like her a little better. She's at least not squeamish about the obviously cute bats like Cassie is. Like I've seen that glowfur thing she has as a pet. Anyone who has one of those shouldn't be scared of a bat.

There is some interesting discussion involving Lady Cordial, who I still believe to be behind all this, but the girls don't even think about her being a suspect because nobody takes her seriously. It's also her that blurts out about the energy crisis right before Tessa's mission. It's hard for me to keep track of what's been revealed, since I had the early version of Sage's book first and read it a few times, but this is new information to the girls. (It had been upfront in the earlier version.)

Tessa is chosen for the next mission and it's a good one. I like that it's summertime and she's volunteering at an animal shelter. Her special power is communicating with animals, which is cool. She was very good on Wishworld and that helped make up for how angry I was with her earlier. Adora comes down to help her and I know she's going to be one of my favorites. She's calm, cool, collected, logical and methodical, all things I respect.

The book ends with a little cliffhanger. Tessa, Scarlet and Cassie find a secret place in the caves where old books are hidden and they find the one about the prophecy. Then they get locked in, but if you read the sneak peek at Adora's book, Cassie's sent out a hololetter so you know they'll get out.

I still really dislike what Tessa did to Cassie. That's not how you treat a friend and teammate. But she managed to get my liking her by the end of the book. She just better not do anything that horrible ever again.