A review by annettebooksofhopeanddreams
Set in Stone by Mari Mancusi

4.0

From all the Twisted Tales books I've read so far I had always at least seen the movie once. Some a little longer ago and some more recently, but still. However, this movie I've never seen. I will put it on the "catch up with Disney-list" I'm using for my Saturday Nights. I just didn't wanna wait with reading this book until I had seen the movie. Especially because I think that all these books are still a lot of fun without knowing the original.

This book also was a lot of fun without having seen the original movie. I guess that's partly because there is also this original story behind the original animation movie. And maybe the book is in the first place a twisted version of the animation movie, but in a way it also becomes a twisted version of the original tale of Arthur and his knights. And even though the relationships between all the characters get a little messy I think the main idea behind all of it still stands.

I also really loved how the classical characters were spending some time in our world and were confronted with modern ideas. Some of those were absolutely useless for our characters, but I liked how in a way innovation became kind of circular in this one. The old characters were taking some modern innovations and brought them back with them into the past to introduce them there. And somehow the story gets away with it without much issue.

And I guess that's mostly because Arthur still feels very Arthur and I most of all loved Guin in this book. She's the one having to change and grow the most during the story. She's the one learning that she's been lied to her entire life and that loads of things she always believed were truths were actually clever manipulations to turn her into a perfect kind of weapon. Although it's nice to see that Guin eventually turns out to be more than JUST a weapon for Morgana.

Once more a book that keeps the Disney spirit and Disney feel while also adding a few extra layers.