Review: Once Upon a Dream

Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Truthfully, I found Once Upon A Dream to be somewhat of a disappointment.
 
The Twisted Tales series seems to be dividing readers: some love the books whereas others despise the books. I found myself enjoying A Whole New World, appearing to be in the minority. I was able to accept that the story would not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it for the most part. Thus, I was intrigued to see what the second book would bring.
 
What I was given… well, the book didn’t give me much.
 
It took me forever to get into this one. I kept trying to get into it, but it never seemed to happen. Then, when I finally was pulled into the story it wasn’t long before I found myself rather bored again. It was a case of constant ups and downs, with there being more downs than ups. It really did seem to drag, with most events being dull. There was such potential, it could have been so much better, and yet it fell short in most ways.
 
I’ll start with the disappointment of events. I kept expecting things to happen. I was always eager for something big to occur. Only, nothing big ever seemed to pop out of the woodworks. Promises of action were dangled before us, and everything that played out was mediocre at best. There were a couple of interesting things – but nowhere near enough for a book of this length. It needed so much more to ensure amusement for the entire novel.
 
Then there’s the disappointment of characters. The Prince was the best part of this book, in my opinion, but even he stopped being amusing after a while. I wasn’t sure what it was about him, but there was a glimmer of promise within him. Every so often he would show the potential of being a real character – yet he never made it. As for the rest of the cast… to put it simply, they were flat. I grew so tired of listening to Aurora, grew tired of how she had nothing going for her at all. I feel as though there was supposed to be some kind of message behind her character, due to the attempt at development, but I was so bored of her I failed to pay as much attention as I probably should have.
 
Honestly, this wasn’t at all what I had hoped for. I’m planning to give the next story a read, if only because it’s one of my favourite tales, but if it’s anything like this one I may give up. The first book was fun – it didn’t blow me away, but I enjoyed it – yet this one barely managed to scrap a three star rating from me.
 
To make matters worse, there were so many errors in this. Typos that really should have been noticed. Mistakes that stare you in the face. I’m disappointed Disney, you can do so much better than this.

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