Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - What Once Was Mine

Queen Ariana (Rapunzel’s mother) drinks the Moondrop flower, resulting in Rapunzel being born with magical abilities that can lead to destruction. Mother Gothel becomes Rapunzel’s adopted mother raising (not really) Rapunzel.

I will recommend it to anyone who loves the original story, honestly, this book is good at comparing good parenting and abusive (emotionally and physically) parenting.

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Plot: Queen Ariana (Rapunzel’s mother) drinks the Moondrop flower, resulting in Rapunzel being born with magical abilities that can lead to destruction. Mother Gothel becomes Rapunzel’s adopted mother raising (not really) Rapunzel. Rapunzel can kill chickens with her “murderhair”.

Gothel collects a selected group of rich and deadly individuals to bid for Rapunzel’s hand in marriage or to purchase Rapunzel as a maid. Rapunzel escapes her castle and hires Gina to find Flynn to sneak her into Corona to see the floating lanterns.

Mother Gothel realizes that Rapunzel has escaped making the group hunt Rapunzel down leading her to hide at the Goodwives' home finally learning about her hair and power. She discovers she has the Moonstone flower power, instead of the sun drop flower, and that her power depends on the phase of the moon.

Countess Bathory, a rich serial killer countess who likes to kill young women and bathe in their blood, captures Rapunzel and a fight goes down.

During the final battle, Rapunzel stands up to the abuse by Gothel after realizing that her parenting methods are not usual and that she didn’t deserve to be told that her confinement in the tower for 19 years was punishment for what she supposedly did as a baby.

What I loved: It accurately represents child abuse, especially emotional abuse. I’m very glad that they focused on emotional abuse instead of physical abuse because although emotional abuse is as valid as physical abuse, not many people treat it as such. It’s really nice to see and have the younger audience understand what emotional abuse is while understanding what physical abuse is, as Rapunzel does face physical abuse but it’s not Gothel hitting her.

Flynn is amazing as always and has proven that he is not a dick, so that’s great.

Gina’s character development because she faced so much sexism that she started to believe and expect it from everyone. Until the end when she stopped believing in it and believe in herself.

The Goodwives is such a good example of good parenting which is a great contrast to Gothel.

What I didn't like/wanted different: The final battle at the countess’s castle in the last 50 pages? The pacing at the end of the book was really unnatural. Is it realistic for Rapunzel to accept that her mother is abusive and her parents are very much alive who gave her away to Gothel because they thought she was a good mother? Considering how the book is slow and on the longer side, there should’ve been more pages and Rapunzel’s inner conflict between her wanting to view Gothel as her perfect mother while knowing that Gothel used her for her own benefit.

Also, some things that even Daniel has pointed out but where is Maximoff? There’s a soldier obsessed with horses that even turn into a horse at the end but is still not Maximoff. In the beginning the Sundrop flower but then there is no mention of it except for the part where Rapunzel is confirming that her mother drank the Moonstone flower. Though there will be more mention of it, oh well the book is about the Moonstone flower. But now that I think about it, there wasn’t actually too much about the actual flower except the power the flower gave Rapunzel.

Content Warnings

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adventurous dark funny inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Thank you #NetGalley for the ebook of this Twisted Tale!

This was my first Twisted Tale. The story of Rapunzel has always been a favorite, so I was excited to see a brand new take on this classic story. I was impressed with the twist and enjoyed the extra action that was included. Definitely brought a bit more to this princesses story than we already had. There were definitely times were I couldn't take my eyes off the pages. However, there were times were I really thought this was more of an adult book. Not because of the material in the book, but because of the words. It felt like some big words were just placing in here and they didn't seem to fit since this is a middle-grade read, not a YA or adult series.

Outside of that, I loved how Maximus made his debut. Flynn is still an all time favorite Disney male character. The growth in Rapunzel was great. I loved that there was a bit more modern changes to her character and she realized she had a voice. She also gave that voice over to Gina, who was a great addition to the story. Every woman needs an amazing female friend, which isn't always provided in the fairy tales.

One of the main things I loved was the addition of Brendan reading his version of the story to his sister while she was receiving chemo. The author's note dives a little more into why this was added, but I thought it was really beautiful and definitely added to the story!

I can't wait to read more of these Twisted Tales!

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