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A review by lesserjoke
Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw
4.0
With one bizarre caveat that I'll get to below, this 2022 sequel novel to the 1993 stop-motion classic is a worthy follow-up and a great adventure in its own right. It's certainly far better than I expected for a belated media tie-in with such an awkwardly-long full title! Centering on the somewhat-underutilized love interest from the film, this book explores newlywed Sally's anxieties at becoming queen, a surprising retcon of her origins, and her heroic efforts to save the whole world from a threat she unknowingly unleashes. I like how author Shea Ernshaw has taken this opportunity to not only revisit the Halloween Town and Christmas Town settings of the movie, but also to depict for the first time their Thanksgiving, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, and Valentine's counterparts. She expands the worldbuilding further as well by introducing the concept of ancient, pre-holiday lands whose portals are overgrown but still accessible, with our protagonist inadvertently opening one and letting in an eldritch monster that proceeds to put everyone else to sleep in order to steal their dreams.
It's a fantastic premise and a strong showcase for the main character, and generally retains throughout that effervescent blend of quirky darkness that makes the original animation (and the Tim Burton brand more broadly) such a timeless delight. I don't want to spoil the revelations about the heroine's past, but I'll simply note that, as with the project as a whole, I was initially skeptical yet swiftly won over. The ensuing examination of found families, conflicting heritages, and chosen home communities is very well-done, and a neat thematic extension of Jack's old interest in bringing elements of Christmas into Halloween.
As for the clunkiness: this is going to sound ludicrous in summary, but at one point, Sally winds up in the human world, where everyone has likewise been cursed into perpetual slumber while she searches for a cure and tries to avoid the Sandman herself. Thinking thoughts about royalty, the ragdoll arrives in the bedchambers of England's Queen Elizabeth II, and spends a few minutes marveling at how "polished" and "courtly" and "elegant" the sleeping monarch looks. As readers, we are forced to sit through several paragraphs like this, each one seemingly more cringeworthy than the last:
"There is still something about her. A magnificence that cannot be measured in the weight of the silk that makes up her gowns, or the jewels draped over her pale human skin. She has the soul of a queen, sleeping or not. Adorned and bejeweled or not. It's in the breath that rests in her delicate lungs, the refined features of her face, the firmness in her jaw. She is dignified and stately and noble. I suppose some people are just born with it in their veins… I swear I can feel the nobility of her through her skin -- like a golden, shimmery light. The strength of a woman who has seen many things, overcome much in her long life. A woman who was meant for this role."
Published about a month before her death, that is an offensively hagiographic and simplistic treatment of a colonizer directly responsible for countless acts of bloodshed and theft around the globe, not to mention an apparent eugenicist argument for the reality of noble genes. And if you think I'm bringing politics into this cute little YA story…. No, actually Ernshaw and Disney Press did that, by literally writing a real person with a very complicated legacy into this plot only to shamelessly fawn all over her. The royal figure is not even just an obvious winking stand-in for Elizabeth; she is identified by name at several points -- a distinction given to no other living soul by this franchise. It's an embarrassing miscalculation of a scene on every level, and if the writer or editor ever sees my review, I do want you to know that you should feel bad about including it in the finished novel.
With all that being said: the entire rest of the tale is really rather good! I don't believe the one off-moment merits changing my rating overall, so I'm going to go ahead and give this work the four stars that I feel it generally deserves. But I did hate that passage in London so much that I couldn't in good conscience review the title without addressing it.
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It's a fantastic premise and a strong showcase for the main character, and generally retains throughout that effervescent blend of quirky darkness that makes the original animation (and the Tim Burton brand more broadly) such a timeless delight. I don't want to spoil the revelations about the heroine's past, but I'll simply note that, as with the project as a whole, I was initially skeptical yet swiftly won over. The ensuing examination of found families, conflicting heritages, and chosen home communities is very well-done, and a neat thematic extension of Jack's old interest in bringing elements of Christmas into Halloween.
As for the clunkiness: this is going to sound ludicrous in summary, but at one point, Sally winds up in the human world, where everyone has likewise been cursed into perpetual slumber while she searches for a cure and tries to avoid the Sandman herself. Thinking thoughts about royalty, the ragdoll arrives in the bedchambers of England's Queen Elizabeth II, and spends a few minutes marveling at how "polished" and "courtly" and "elegant" the sleeping monarch looks. As readers, we are forced to sit through several paragraphs like this, each one seemingly more cringeworthy than the last:
"There is still something about her. A magnificence that cannot be measured in the weight of the silk that makes up her gowns, or the jewels draped over her pale human skin. She has the soul of a queen, sleeping or not. Adorned and bejeweled or not. It's in the breath that rests in her delicate lungs, the refined features of her face, the firmness in her jaw. She is dignified and stately and noble. I suppose some people are just born with it in their veins… I swear I can feel the nobility of her through her skin -- like a golden, shimmery light. The strength of a woman who has seen many things, overcome much in her long life. A woman who was meant for this role."
Published about a month before her death, that is an offensively hagiographic and simplistic treatment of a colonizer directly responsible for countless acts of bloodshed and theft around the globe, not to mention an apparent eugenicist argument for the reality of noble genes. And if you think I'm bringing politics into this cute little YA story…. No, actually Ernshaw and Disney Press did that, by literally writing a real person with a very complicated legacy into this plot only to shamelessly fawn all over her. The royal figure is not even just an obvious winking stand-in for Elizabeth; she is identified by name at several points -- a distinction given to no other living soul by this franchise. It's an embarrassing miscalculation of a scene on every level, and if the writer or editor ever sees my review, I do want you to know that you should feel bad about including it in the finished novel.
With all that being said: the entire rest of the tale is really rather good! I don't believe the one off-moment merits changing my rating overall, so I'm going to go ahead and give this work the four stars that I feel it generally deserves. But I did hate that passage in London so much that I couldn't in good conscience review the title without addressing it.
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog