Review--Evil Thing by Serena Valentino

 

Cruella De Vil is the perfect villain: stylish, witty, relentless...and possibly cursed.

From her lonely childhood, to her iconic fashion choices, to that fateful car crash (you know the one), Cruella tells all in this marvelous memoir of a woman doomed. Even the cruelest villains have best friends, true loves, and daring dreams. Now it's Cruella's turn to share hers.

This latest novel by the author of the wildly popular and darkly fascinating Villains series brings readers a tale told by the Evil Thing herself-a tale of the complicated bonds of female friendship, of mothers and daughters, and of burning, destructive desire.

After all, nothing is as simple as black and white.

 

 

 

Diving back into my TBR pile, I came up with Serena Valentino's Evil Thing! I am loving the Disney Villains series though I am still quite behind! It's been an interesting insight to all the classic villains we've come to fear and/or abhor from our favorite movies. Cruella was always an interesting character, I mean not only do we have her animated, we have her in live action form with Glenn Close, and then more recently we had her live action background story. Of course, that one in particular won't fit in with this story, from the animated woman herself!

This is the story of Cruella De Vil and the girl she once was and how she turned into the slightly mad woman that we saw her as. Cruella was actually a normal, happy child. She had a loving and doting father who read her fairy tales, she had a mother who doted her with fur coats and clothing, and then she had her best friend, Anita. Life was good...until it slowly wasn't.

Cruella tells us her tale in this one from her current future. She looks back on her life, perhaps trying to see where it all went wrong. As noted, she had a rather happy childhood, mostly in part to her father and friend, Anita. She loved her mother though, she always looked forward to spending time with her mother, but her mother rarely seemed to have time for her as she was always running out to the next party or social gathering or she had the need to go shopping.

We get to see Cruella grow into a young woman and watch her mother try to rule her life. And if you pay close enough attention you will see things that become notable later on. Little tiny details that will shape Cruella into the woman we meet in 101 Dalmatians.

I quite enjoyed this story! I always wondered at Anita and Cruella's relationship as the animated movie hinted at a past together while the live action one made its own connections. Naturally, it's best to go with the animated stories when reading these Villain books, should there be a live action one to also make comparisons with.

I very much felt for Cruella in this story. She was always just a girl trying to make her mother proud of her, trying to win her approval, her love, but she never seemed to be enough for her mother and it was just so sad. Cruella did have a good life up to a certain point, she had moments of pure happiness and then you might catch onto things and see where things start to slowly go terribly wrong.

But in the end, we all know what is to happen. Of course, I haven't watched the movie in ages and can't quite remember what her fate was then, but this book gives us the true answer. Or Cruella's answer at least.

I was a bit surprised that we didn't see the famous Odd Sisters hanging out in the background. There was a suspicious looking character, but since I haven't read the last book in over a year or maybe two...I can't quite figure out if my suspicion has any fodder or not. But since I have three more Villain books waiting for me, I did see our "hint" at who the next book would be about. Doesn't hurt that I know who it is that when the "hint" appeared I was like, "oh, there it is!" Lol.

This is definitely a series for the Disney fan at heart! I want to say Disney purist, but don't really like that connotation with what this story is about. For I guess a Disney purist wouldn't really root for the villain in this one. Not that I was rooting for Cruella to kill the dogs, but I felt for the girl she once was. 

If you are new to this series, I can say that you don't "have" to read the books in order. If there's one villain you want to read over the others, you can get away with that. In the past, some of the books have a small plotline involving the Odd Sisters where they make appearances and sometimes help steer the story in one direction or another and I suspect that maybe someday we'll get to the bottom of their story, but that day isn't today.

Evil Thing was yet another enchanting read from the world of Disney and all the stories we found there! Getting this other side to the villains' story is a real treat! I'm actually looking forward to getting back to this series because I'm all sorts of curious about the next couple of villains whose stories are about to be told!

Overall Rating 5/5 stars