I adore the Twisted Tale series, but this one just…missed. I don’t think it’s entirely the fault of the author (I read What Once Was Mine by the same and greatly enjoyed it), but the writing style is sorely lacking.

Most of the blame lies with the format. Instead of twisting one element in the middle or beginning of the story and continuing from there, this one starts five years after the events of The Little Mermaid if Ursula had been victorious.

The characters are flat and I felt no connection to them. This story is meant to be a more mature outlook on the story where Ariel is left voiceless and defeated and has to learn to overcome her past, but it read as very cold and distant.

The romance was also practically non-existent. Ariel spends nearly the whole book with the mentality of “my feelings for this boy caused my defeat five years ago and I must avoid him.” Which…fair, but I pick up fairytale retellings for the romance, so I was disappointed.

I did not feel this book was engaging. I felt very bored and it truly was a struggle to get through, the complete opposite of other books in this series. And yet this was the one the publisher made a graphic novel out of? This was still an interesting twisted tale, but not a good book.