Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

Book Review – A Frozen Heart

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frozen_heart

I bought this book from Asda and I have to admit I was pretty excited to find it, especially for £3.75. This book had been on my Amazon wishlist for some time and I assumed it would be similar to the Twisted Tales by by Liz Braswell. I had read A Whole New World, picked up Once Upon a Dream and this seemed like it would be similar, despite being by a different author, Elizabeth Rudnick.

Sadly, I was quite disappointed. If you want to read the novelisation of the Frozen movie, then this book is for you. It’s the exact story that the Frozen movie provides you with, except in a written form – meaning more detail, more description, more dialogue etc. That said, any dialogue that appeared in the movie, appears in this book. Every quote your children (or you) know off by heart, will be in this book. At first its sort of lovely – an indepth look to Anna and Elsa’s life, even a bit more background on Hans which you don’t really get in the movie. However once the storyline gets going, the story is basically exactly like the animation and it loses something for me.

That said, the end still made me cry, just like it does when I watch it. The book is a beautiful rendition of the movie, but that is all it is. I was expecting something more, something different, something that tells us a different part of the story. But sadly it’s not that. If you want to read “Frozen”, then absolutely pick up this book. If you’re looking for something more, it’s probably best not to bother.

Book Review – A Whole New World by Liz Braswell

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I have SO many book reviews to write now as I’ve been lucky enough to catch up on loads of reading recently. I also have my Paris 3 Day diary to write over the next few days. However I really wanted to share this particular book review quickly, as A Whole New World (A Twisted Tales) is very topical right now!

This book had been on my Amazon wishlist for quite some time, in hardback, along with Once Upon a Dream (by the same author). However it seems to have gone somewhat viral over the last few weeks, as the paperback appeared both on Amazon and more specifically in Morrisons, for only £3.50! I was lucky enough that Chris bought it for me and I managed to get to read it immediately, due to a very long car ride to Paris this weekend just gone!

If truth be told, I started the book in the bath on Thursday night, but only the first few chapters. I then started to read it on the journey from London to Maidstone, then from Folkestone to Calais (over the tunnel) and Calais to Paris. I did in fact complete the book in this time. I have to admit I really enjoyed it, despite seeing on Goodreads that many people didn’t like it.

First of all, I want to start by saying, Disney own the rights to this book so be prepared for it to be VERY Disney. The book starts with an introduction to Aladdin, his life and of course Agrabah. It mimics the original animated movie almost exactly, but in words and with more description, than you perhaps get in the movie itself. For me, I liked this. I love Disney, I love the movie and I had no objection to the first quarter of the book being pretty much exactly the movie. However the point of the book is that it’s a twisted tale and without ruining it for anyone – the change occurs in the Cave of Wonders, whereby Jafar gets the lamp and Aladdin gets trapped, thus changing the storyline.

Caveof Wonders

I don’t want to get into spoilers as that’s something I always avoid in my book reviews, but I’m sure you all know that if Jafar got his hands on the lamp from the beginning, it can only mean bad things! At this point, I think the book really stepped into it’s own. “A Whole New World” is not just a spin on the Disney movie, it is a story and book in it’s own right. The author is actually very clever in my opinion, to take characters and a world invented by someone else and somehow make it their own. While others have called it a rip-off or a fan-fiction, I disagree. I think it’s well thought out and really quite good. The theme is far more dark and mature than a regular Disney movie or book and I liked that. This is not a book to be read to kids, its something much more adult orientated and while it still has a happy ending, its a more realistic one than a typical “They all lived happily ever after”.

If you’re looking for something Disney, but perhaps a little more unique, I recommend you give this a go. You need to go into it open-minded though, no expectations and just let your mind fall into the new world and it’s new story, instead of drawing comparisons! Let me know what you think if you give it a read.