What Once Was Mine is a fun romp and a quick read despite it's lengthy page count. A retelling of Rapunzel, the story does follow the traditional tale fairly closely for the first section of the novel, but then spins off into it's own version of the tale with new twists, new characters, and a lot of really cute and adventurous fun.

The story is told in two timelines, with the narrative of Rapunzel being a story within a story a la the movie The Princess Bride. After reading the author's note, I understand the reason for this construction choice, but I didn't feel it was executed well. These sections instead pulled me out of the story and made the overall tale feel a bit more juvenile. In addition, it wasn't really fully fleshed out and felt more like a commercial interlude. For me, it was wasted space. I would have preferred to solely have the central Rapunzel tale from start to finish.

Despite my issues with the modern storyline interruptions, the writing was good and easy to breeze through with decent atmosphere and great character descriptions. The characters do, for the most part, follow the traditional tale, but there are some additional heroes and villains at work who really made the story fun. The story does get a little dark and maybe slightly too aggressive, but I found it interesting.

There is definitely a middle grade/younger YA feel to the majority of the writing and there are some pretty cheesy moments, but What Once Was Mine is an enjoyable guilty pleasure read and I had a good time. Time to pick up the rest of the series.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *