Mother Knows Best: A Villains Novel
Serena Valentino
Amazon Review:
The tale of the legendary golden flower is widely known. The story has been told many times and in many ways. But always the flower is coveted by an old witch to keep herself young and beautiful. And always the flower is used to save a dying queen, who then gives birth to a princess with magical hair. Not willing to lose the flower, the old witch steals the princess and locks her away in a high tower, raising her as her own. But the princess always finds out who she truly is and manages to defeat the old witch.
And yet this is only half the story. So what of the old witch, Mother Gothel? Where does she come from? And how does she come across the magical golden flower? Here is one account that recounts a version of the story that has remained untold for centuries . . . until now. It is a tale of mothers and daughters, of youth and dark magic. It is a tale of the old witch.
My Review:
8/10
Forenote:
Although I didn’t review books 2-4 from the series, I did read them cover to cover, so if you are reading this review, you might be a little lost. And if you have never read any of the books in this series, this review will be very confusing.
The actual review:
So here we are, back with another Villains book review. This is going to be short and sweet. Mother Gothel is one of the baddest Disney Villains in my opinion. She kidnaps a baby, locks her away, and lies to her “daughter” her whole life. In the beginning of the movie, Flynn was talking about how Gothel was hundreds of years old. So what was happening before she found the flower. Why did she want to stay young? So many questions left to ask myself.
This book delves deeply back into Gothel’s past, and what a surprise, The Odd Sister’s are the antagonists. This book takes place further back than any of the other books, given the fact that Gothel is hundreds of years old, and they were around when she was a kid.
This book took a long time to catch up to the story of Tangled, which made me annoyed. I do think however that the backstory was one of the most interesting from the series. It did make me want to read more. The reason I didn’t like this book so much is because the Odd Sisters played a big role in it. They had their own story going on, which made it harder to track.
OVERALL:
If you are a fan of Mother Gothel, or Serena Valentino’s Villains series, this book is a must read. I would not recommend reading this book as a standalone, because you might get lost with what’s going on. The actual language was very easy to understand though.