3.5 stars.

My rating of this book is both helped by and suffers from my previous viewing of the Disney adaptation. It was helped because I already more or less knew the progression of the plot, so all of the weirdness didn't hit quite as hard as it otherwise would have. Because to be honest, this baby is ALL over the place. There isn't a whole lot that makes sense in terms of a normal movement of the plot...it's all crazy fever dream stuff. I forgave a lot of that because I more or less already expected it. However, already knowing the plot hurt my enjoyment as well because I knew what was coming and the shock of the craziness didn't hit as hard as it would have otherwise. So...while the craziness wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense, I did lose the suspense portion of the novel and so my interest in the plot dwindled some.

Knowing that this book was originally written as a serial helps it to make the weirdness a little more understandable. There needed to be some serious shock factor to keep the readers coming back for every new installment. And oh boy did this baby deliver on the crazy.

It's a bit of a dark tale, heavy on the morality lessons. It's a bit repetitive in that manner, so it did have a little bit of slog to it, but it's a short enough story that getting through wasn't too much trouble. Probably not entirely worth the read since I'd already seen the movie, but what are you going to do...