Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart
Updated: Mar 16, 2023
Delilah S. Dawson
Amazon Summary:
Set in a fantasy land that is familiar but slightly changed, the story begins as Snow White helps a young deer in the forest. This isn’t the Snow White that Disney fans know: she has been recently transformed by the creation of the Disney Mirrorverse and given magical powers that she does not yet know how to wield. Despite her new abilities and the strange things happening in her world, Snow White, or “Snow” as her friends often call her, has been carrying on as normal…until now.
As she returns to her cottage, Snow spots her seven friends with dark, angry expressions, and glowing white eyes. They attack her, claiming they need to capture “the heart of Snow White.” Snow desperately tries to reason with her friends, but they refuse to listen to her, and she ultimately has to use the strange magic she has recently acquired to fend them off.
Snow is horrified when it seems that she has accidentally killed her friends in her attempt to protect herself. It is only when a strange talking creature, who she learns to be Sorcerer Mickey, the ruler of the Disney Mirrorverse, arrives and explains that the creatures she defeated were not her friends. They were a group of Fractured: evil copies created by Dark Magic. Snow believes that the evil Queen has taken her friends, and it is up to Snow to retrieve them and the Fractured Mirror, the source of the Mirrorverse’s power, before it can be used to destroy Snow’s home world forever.
But Snow doesn’t need to face the Queen alone. Mickey assigns her a team of Guardians, powerful beings from many different worlds who have committed to thwarting the Fractured and protecting the Mirrorverse from evil. Snow meets Tiana—an expert potion-maker—Rapunzel—a fighter who knows how to wield a frying pan—Stitch—a chaotic blue alien who can change forms—Sully— a monster with a big heart—and Hades—the lord of the underworld, who has offered to join the mission to see what this whole “Guardian gig” is about.
This unlikely crew ventures into Snow’s world, where they find growing Fractured, a determined huntsman, and a newly poisoned dark forest. On the way to the palace, each character faces a challenge seemingly created just for them.
My Review:
5/10
I am going to keep this review short, but even before that there is one thing I would like to say. This book was based off of a video game, released in 2022, called Disney Mirrorverse. I instantly fell in love with this game, because it is everything I would like bundled into one. Disney characters, rebels, fighting and collecting characters. So when I saw this book, I was very excited to read it. I went in not knowing what this book was really about. I guess you can say I went Into The Unknown. (I hate myself for that joke, but it was right there.)
Let me dive head first into what I liked about this book. It kept me entertained. That is for sure. It had all the characters I liked, and was a smorgasbord of characters, and it was like Kingdom Hearts. I used to be obsessed with watching game plays of it when I was little. (Especially the Aladdin world).
I am on a temporary tech-break with my phone, so I couldn't play the game, and this book was just like playing the game. It satisfied my craving. There was non-stop action and the world building was definitely clever. I hate giving books negative reviews, but as a reviewer it is my solemn duty to be honest. So there always comes the point in a review where we get to the aspects of this story I wasn't a fan of.
This world is slightly different than the Disney worlds we know and love. However, one of the worlds in this novel felt thrown together. When Snow meets Sorcerer Mickey, and they meet the other heroes, I didn't know what the setting was supposed to be. Was it an asteroid in the galaxy? or a planetarium? That is one example of where I think some of the worlds could have been more developed and clearer.
I do a sketch comedy class, and we learned about this thing called a character parade. It is when there are a bunch of different characters with different traits, but all benefit the main premise of the scene. That's what this felt like. I am a huge fan of Disney, and was so happy Rapunzel was in it, but the main character, Snow White, was very one dimensional. You really can't see any development in Snow White.
I can appreciate unpredictability in a book but in my experience of reading this story, the plot felt especially challenging to follow and piece together. However, I think that people who are fans of:
- Enchanted
- Disenchanted
- The Black Cauldron
You should definitely pick up this book when it is released.