I must confess I never really appreciated the Odd Sisters in the other books in this series. I guess having them fully explored and fleshed-out in their own book worked its charm on me. It was really refreshing to read something that wasn't masquerading as something it wasn't. In the other books, we are told the story is about the Disney villains. Really, the other books are all about the Odd Sisters, with the villains as other characters in their story. That irritated me. Here, I find that pushing through to the conclusion of the Odd Sisters tale was worth it.

I do have to say that I think the ending was a bit rushed. Actually, I didn't like the ending at all. But the majority of the book was great! ( )

This book was great. I can't believe the ending. Oh I want to keep reading more. ( )

I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. I had alot of hope that it would give me answers but it has left me with far more questions. I enjoyed the storyline and it brought together the previous books loose ends but opened up many loose ends of its own and the cliffhanger it left at the end has me mildly upset ( )

The conclusion to the first six (there are more to come) Disney Villain books by Valentino delivers what I've unfortunately come to expect -- clunky and repetitive narration, sloppy research (the biggest irritation here being how the three fairies from "Sleeping Beauty" continue to have Flora and Merryweather's personalities merged into one, with Fauna's being given the other two), missed opportunities galore, and incredibly dull and underwhelming original characters that the author insists on giving the spotlight instead of the licensed characters that are the only reason anyone reads these books. But it also continues the somewhat redeeming qualities (outside of Thomas' amazing covers) of delivering on seeing the various Disney casts interact, and having reasonably interesting plot developments when viewed on a macro-level (i.e. when not bogged down in the underwhelming execution). "The Odd Sisters" are also the one/three least bland original characters in the series, though Valentino's continued insistance of nobody being evil because they're greedy pricks but always having a magical and/or psychological trauma in their youth to explain it is starting to get a bit old. If one or two villains are really warped heroes for reasons largely beyond their own control, cool and interesting, if every single villain is it just becomes trite. But nevermind, this installment at least ties all the plot threads together to a conclusion of sorts, and the basic ideas Valentino has for how to do that are satisfying enough. Some of them inexplicably and disappointingly happen off the page (such as the characters' much-talked about return and re-defeat of Maleficent), but the ones we do see are among the book's few highlights, notably Grimhilde's return (Valentino has finally learned her name, it seems) and Circe's big decision.

It should also be mentioned that this is the first installment with interior art, and Tiozzo-Lyon's efforts lift the book enormously. If the narration had half the atmosphere and charisma of these drawings, I'd not have much to complain about. I was tempted to give an extra half star just for that, but as there is 'just' one drawing per chapter, they're not quite frequent enough to justify that.

I remain horribly disappointed that something with as much potential as this series is so mishandled -- and the lackluster research aside I don't blame Valentino, who is clearly doing as good as she can, because it is a much stronger editorial presence that most of all would have helped every installment so far enormously -- but I can't help but want to keep seeing the Disney villains continue to exist in the same universe, and hope that somehow the writing gets better over time. Next up is apparently Cruella DeVille, meaning (I assume) the fantasy elements will be minimised -- maybe that will be enough of a change to shake some life into the series? Fingers crossed ( )