Book Review: Freddie's Shadow Cards (Disney Descendants: School of Secrets #2)

Release Date: October 25, 2016
Author: Jessica Brody
Publisher: Disney Press
Length: 192 pages
Source: Library Book

The School of Secrets series of chapter books continues the story of Mal and her friends, plus new Villain kids and Auradon kids introduced in the popular Wicked World short form videos. Enjoy these all-new tales of mystery, magic and adventure from the world of the hit movie Descendants!

Freddie is the daughter of the infamous witch doctor, Dr. Facilier.

She's got voodoo in her blood, a deck of Shadow Cards in her hands, and a song in her villain-kid heart.When Freddie's dreams of joining the acapella group at Auradon Prep fall apart, she uses her Shadow Cards to get her way...But dark magic always comes with a price.

    

Review:

Protagonist: Coming off the end of CJ's Treasure Chase, Freddie wants to make a name for herself in Auradon as a jazz singer, and the best way to do that is apparently to join an acapella group? Yeah, I understand the experience would be good for her and help get her name out there, but it felt a bit of a stretch. Anyway, after a less than stellar auditions experience, Freddie would do just about anything to get her shot on the acapella team. Enter her shadow cards. These are cards her father gave her on her tenth birthday that she's just recently rediscovered. Could this be just what she needs? Freddie's adventures with her shadow cards lead her on a voyage of self-discovery that will show her where she belongs. I really liked Freddie's character development in this story. She isn't as evil and villainous as CJ was at the start of her adventure, but she's a long way from a hero and her journey in this story really helps to liven things up because this story doesn't leave Auradon Prep for very long.

World Building: Honestly, the world building in this story wasn't the best. Don't get me wrong, I did really enjoy all of the facets of this world that we did get to see. However, I had thought/hoped this series would entail adventuring across the United States of Auradon and seeing the various kingdom states that make up the land. This story is, however, far more character driven. Freddie is, of course, the main driving force, but she does have some burgeoning friendships. These friendships were a fun treat to see develop over the course of the book. Most of the time with this world characters seem to either be friends or not, and the road to a real friendship is either skipped over or fast tracked as to not get in the way of the plot. However, in this story, Freddie's unlikely friendships are a fantastic subplot that helps drive the main story along at a fun and dare I say addicting pace. We do get to see the world outside Auradon Prep, and even get to do some old fashioned adventuring, however, it doesn't last all that long and while these characters do meet a new AK along the way, the need for that character wasn't all that strong, to begin with and the out of place character sort of detracted from the story just a small bit.

Predictability: Honestly, I have to say this story was fairly unpredictable. However, that's mostly because this wasn't the story I expected and while I could see some small vague story points coming, the specifics really caught me off guard. I really did enjoy all of the little surprises this story had in store. There's a theme of magic coming with a price in this story and how that plays out was really the most surprising part of the story to me, and how that entire thing is resolved, while not exactly surprising, was a great element to the story and I was awed by how much I enjoyed that bit of resolution.

Ending: As for the ending, I was hoping this story would end in a way that wasn't too idealistic since I've seen that can be a trope for books aimed at a younger audience. The ending starts out very well, as the resolution isn't something that would be achieved easily, and there is some real work that needs to be put into things to even hope for a happy ending. That being said though, even though there's some effort needed to get to where Freddie is in the end, things still felt a bit too easily resolved and things ended just a bit too idealistically.

Rating:

While I did enjoy this short adventure, it wasn't as exciting as the previous one, and even though Freddie's character development was extremely compelling, things just turned out a bit too idealistically. That being said I'm still looking forward to reading more in this hard to piece together canon.

Book Review: CJ's Treasure Chase (Disney Descendants: School of Secrets #1)

Release Date: August 30, 2016
Author: Jessica Brody
Publisher: Disney Press
Length: 192 pages
Source: Library Book

CJ is the daughter of Captain James Hook. She's fierce. She's swashbuckling. And she has big dreams. . . like finding the treasure she's known about since she was a little girl stranded on the Isle of the Lost. When CJ sneaks out of Auradon Prep with her best friend, Freddie, they go on a wild chase to find it.

The School of Secrets series of chapter books continues the story of Mal and her friends, plus new Villain kids and Auradon kids introduced in the popular Wicked World short form videos. Enjoy these all-new tales of mystery, magic and adventure from the world of the hit movie Descendants!

    

Review:

Protagonist: CJ Hook as found a way off the Isle of the Lost, she stows away on a spell cast by the genie Jordan and is hiding out in her best friend Freddie's dorm room. She doesn't plan on going to Auradon Prep, however, no, CJ has much more adventurous plans in mind. Ever since she was young CJ has dreamed of following a map she found in her the hold of her father's ship, a map that just may be magical, but until now she didn't have any access to magic. It was really interesting to read from a real VK's perspective in this series. I mean, in the novels written by Melissa De La Cruz, we see from the original Auradon VK's perspectives, but they're either not in Auradon yet, like with the first installment, or they had been reformed though still struggled with their dark sides a little. However, CJ is a roguish riot, sneaking around Auradon Prep as to not be discovered and sent back to the Isle, or threatening to kidnap people and force them to do what she wants on her treasure chase. She does have a good bit of character development in this story, though not exactly in the way I was assuming when I cracked this book open.

World Building: So if you read my review of Rise of the Isle of the Lost by Melissa De La Cruz, I mentioned how I was getting tired of constantly going back to the Isle without really getting to see the rest of Auradon, however, this story has very little Isle, but a good chunk of Auradon to explore. There's quite a bit of backtracking in this story as the author wrote in little callouts to the Descendants movie as well as the Wicked World shorts, but seeing it from a different perspective kept those moments from getting boring. However, once this story gets caught up with the end of the first season of the Wicked World shorts, things really spring into high gear and it sees our protagonist race across Auradon in hopes of laying her hands on this amazing treasure she's dreamed about since she was little. It was a lot of fun getting to see more of this world and while I had braced myself for this feeling like it was written for a Middle-Grade audience like the De La Cruz sometimes do, or even written for a younger audience than that, it never happened. I liked how reading this short adventure felt like it was written for fans of the series, no matter what age they might be.

Predictability: So, while I never felt talked down to in the writing and the world building of this story, the plot of the story was rather predictable. Well, sort of. See, this isn't a long story and so the author only has so many pages to get from point A to point B and so there's not a lot of time to set up big twists and turns. So the adventure, while very enjoyable was a tad predictable. That being said though, there were still a few times where, given CJ's wild card personality, I wasn't quite sure where the story would take me.

Ending: I don't know what to say about this ending. I mean it's a very short story, very quick to fly through in one sitting and while the final climax of the story was really fun and we got to see a lot of CJ's character development come to light, as she faced her final hurdle toward the treasure, there wasn't as big of an ending to this story as there is in something like the other novels, or even the movie. However, there is a pretty great cooldown period where we learn of CJ's fate going forward and a bit of a tease at what's to come next in the School of Secrets series. I was pretty surprised where things ended up and while I'm sad that CJ's not going to be the main protagonist for the whole series I'm excited to read more stories in this world.

Rating:

Like I said in my review, I was bracing myself and dragging my heels to read this story since I expected it to either be geared toward an MG or younger audience or for it to be unbelievably cheesy. It wasn't though, there's a little bit of cheesy-ness in the story but overall it was a fun and exciting adventure and I'm kind of stoked to read the other School of Secrets books and have more adventures in this world.

Book Review: Rise of the Isle of the Lost (Descendants #3)

Release Date: May 23, 2017
Author: Melissa De La Cruz
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Length: 304 pages
Source: Review Copy from Publisher

Ride with the tide!

Deep beneath the waves, King Triton’s powerful trident has passed through the magical barrier that surrounds the Isle of the Lost—keeping villains in and magic out. And when Mal’s longtime rival Uma, daughter of Ursula, gets wind of this, she can’t believe her luck. The tide has dragged in something good for a change, and Uma is determined to get her wicked hands on it. But first, she needs a pirate crew.

A storm is brewing back in Auradon, and when Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay hear that the trident has been washed away, they realize they’ll have to find it before anyone from the Isle does. Luckily, they seem to have a talent for locating missing magical objects.

As Uma readies for the high seas alongside Harry, son of Captain Hook, Gil, son of Gaston, and the toughest rogues on the Isle of the Lost, the reformed villains of Auradon devise their own master plan. And with King Ben away on royal business, they won’t have to play by all the rules. Using bad for good can’t be totally evil, right?

The thrilling, perilous race to the trident puts old friends—and current enemies—against each other with the future of Auradon on the line. Both teams might like to make waves, but only one will come out on top of this one.

    

Review:

Protagonists: After their latest adventures on the Isle of the Lost, Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay would just like to go back to normal, or whatever passes for normal with them, at another semester of Auradon Prep, but after a Seaside festival celebrating Auradon's anniversary, King Triton's trident goes missing on the Isle of the Lost and it's up to the VKs to retrieve it. Meanwhile, on the Isle, Uma, daughter of Ursula, is loathing Mal and her squandered chance at taking over Auradon with evil, until she hears about a magical artifact hidden beneath the waves somewhere inside the Isle's barrier. This could be her ticket to freedom, but first, she needs a crew, enter the skilled sailor Harry Hook, son of Captain Hook, and the brawny Gil, son of Gaston, who follow their captain, Uma, in hopes of raining terror around Auradon. What I really liked about this story is that we not only see from our friendly VKs' perspectives, but also from the perspectives of Uma, Harry, and Gil. Unlike the first installment in this novel series, Uma and her gang don't seem to have much of a good side to them, which honestly made me feel a bit better since I was worried that the second movie would with Uma and her gang as reformed VKs, which just feels a bit too idealistic and kind of like lazy writing, and while reforming Uma and co. could still happen as Descendants 2 hasn't premiered yet and I haven't seen it, the way the author writes the characters I just don't see it happening. As for our Auradon VKs, they each have their own subplots that flesh out their characters a bit, and it seems, at least in Mal's case, that it's preparing these characters for their roles in the second movie.

Romance: I debated with myself for hours trying to figure out if I should write a romance section for this review. There isn't all that much romance in the story, mainly since it's a Middle-Grade story, but the little bit that's in here does seem important both to the story and to set things up for the next movie. In this story Mal's starting to doubt her place in Auradon, she likes being good, and she cares deeply for Ben, but the responsibilities of being the King's girlfriend are starting to wear her down. There are some really sweet moments between her and Ben that really show why they are a couple to root for. Carlos also starts to develop a romance of his own, but things are left in a place that makes it seem like it'll be something developed further in the upcoming movie, but while it was just a taste of this romance, albeit a very obvious taste, it's definitely something I'm excited to see developed further. Finally, there's really only one scene with Evie and Doug but it's a testament to why they work so well together and was just an all-around heartwarming scene.

World Building: Going into this story I was a bit apprehensive since it seems like these Descendants stories always seem to go back to the Isle instead of spreading out around Auradon. I mean in the previous installment we did get to see Camelot, and in this one, we learn a bit more about Agrabah and the Imperial Kingdom, but everything always seems to lead back to the Isle. don't get me wrong, it makes sense, that's where all the villains are and so when you need a villain that's where you'll go, but it just feels like this world has so much untapped potential to keep going back to the Isle. That being said, I am a bit of a hypocrite since I did enjoy following Uma's adventures on the Isle, and through those chapters, the continuity of this world did get a bit clearer, though until I see the second movie I'm still not sure how canon these novels and the Wicked World shorts are. I was kind of bummed though, since the previous novel installment ended with a cliffhanger I was expecting that plot to either be tied into this story more or for it to be given some sort of pause and then start up again in the next novel, but it was all kind of wrapped up in this story before it really even got started.

Predictability: I went into this book with pretty big expectations as to how the story would go. I mean the previous two novel installments had a very similar story structure. Ben's story would revolve around his title as king and how he can strive to be a good and just king, while the VKs, Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos would travel to, or as is the case with the first installment already be on, the Isle of the Lost and face trials that are relevant to who they are or who they want to be. However, not too far into this story I realized that this novel took a bit of a different approach. While there were definitely aspects that I called before I ever started this book, things didn't quite unfold the way I expected and honestly, I was surprised at some of the dramatic turns this story took.

Ending: Since this is a novel intended to set up the next movie as the story begins to wind down it becomes pretty obvious where things are going, especially if you've seen the trailer for Descendants 2 (embedded below.) The final climax of the story definitely didn't go down the way I was expecting but it was surely an exciting scene to read. The two stories told in this novel come to an incredible head and things turned out both how I expected, but with a bit of a twist, I didn't. The cooldown period seemed to be where most of the actual set up of the movie takes place, but what I really liked was that all of these things had reasons why they happened and those reasons had a special place in the plot of the story and how they got there was a natural progression over the course of this book.

Rating:

I was actually surprised that I'm giving this book 5 stars. Not that I didn't go into it expecting to enjoy it, but I think my expectations were managed just right that I was able to really immerse myself into this story, even though the whole modern day meets next generation of Disney characters thing still kind of rubs me the wrong way. In the end, this book really surprised me and I can't wait to see the next Descendants movie.

Book Review: Return to the Isle of the Lost (Descendants #2)

Release Date: May 24, 2016
Author: Melissa De La Cruz
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Length: 320 pages
Source: Review Copy from Publisher

There’s no place like home. Especially if home is the infamous Isle of the Lost. Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay haven’t exactly turned their villainous noses up at the comforts of Auradon after spending their childhoods banished on the Isle. After all, meeting princes and starring on the Tourney team aren’t nearly as terrible as Mal and her friends once thought they would be.

But when they receive a mysterious invitation to return to the Isle, Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay can’t help feeling comfortable in their old hood—and their old ways. Not everything is how they left it, though, and when they discover a dark mystery at the Isle’s core, they’ll have to combine all of their talents in order to save the kingdom.

    

Review:

Characters: Since the end of the Descendants movie, our heroes are doing pretty well, they've acclimated into Auradon Prep rather well and have found that being good isn't so bad. However there's something brewing back home, they can't seem to find their parents with Evie's magic mirror, and while by all appearances Maleficent is still a tiny lizard, there are rumors of a purple dragon flying about and causing havoc near Camelot. As the four villain kids head off the the Isle of the Lost to check up with the weird messages they received, Ben does his best to hold his kingdom together and be the fair and just ruler he so desires to be. While there isn't a ton of character development in this book, there are defining moments where each of these characters has to face something about themselves and move past it in order to succeed.

World-Building: As with these Descendants novels, we learn way more about this world than we do in the movie. In this book we once again return to the Isle of the Lost, where the majority of the first book took place, but this time it's changed since the downfall of Maleficent, we don't see too many new villain kids, but there are a few things going on on the Isle that seem to have a large impact on this world. Since Ben has a larger role in this book, we see through his perspective more of the United States of Auradon, we see new kingdoms, that are of course united under the Auradon flag, and meet new characters while catching up with old ones as well. My biggest criticism of this book is something I mentioned in my review of The Isle of the Lost, the really cheesy replacements for things such as brands, slang, and seemingly anything else that could be changed to "fit" with this world. I don't mind the replaced words so much, especially with things like brands, it's just how cheesy and lazy it seems sometimes. I don't know if the author came up with the majority of these or if it was someone at Disney but this type of thing needs to stop in modern/fantasy crossovers. Sometimes it works out well and things seem a lot more thought out and then there are things like calling apps on your phone zapps, while texting is still referred to as texting. Lastly, I'm not sure how canonical these novels are, there were a few plot inconsistencies between this book and the movie, and there was some vague glossing over of certain details from the Wicked World shorts.

Predictability: Since this is a Middle Grade level book, there wasn't all that much that surprised me in this book. For the most part there wasn't all that much foreshadowing and if you aren't familiar with some of Disney's lesser known works there are a few things you may not see coming. In fact with one twist I though I knew exactly what was going on only to figure out I was partially right, but there was more going on than I knew. I do have to say though that one of the biggest twists of this book, the stuff going on on the Isle of the Lost, was kept pretty well under wraps, I had my suspicions but in the end was still surprised with what was exactly going on.

Ending: Going into this book I kept thinking about how it might end, would it leave the world largely unchanged, giving the creators of the next movie more freedom? Would it end leaving a few things unresolved so that either there could be another novel before the next movie, or would it leave readers with an idea of what to expect in the next movie? Well, while I will tell you it's one of those I won't say which one. The ending itself was actually pretty great. There wasn't you typical final battle before the book ended, but there was some pretty awesome stuff that went down.

Rating:

So I was looking back at my review of the first installment and was wondering why I gave it such a lukewarm review compared to this one when there's a lot of similarities in content, and I realized it was most likely due to the fact that I knew what I was getting myself into. I knew how Middle Grade this was, I was more familiar with the world and characters after reading the first book and seeing the movie, and being as big a fan as I ma of the movie, I was just so happy to go on another adventure with these characters and I can't wait for the next one!