Poor Unfortunate Soul by Serena Valentino

The tale of the sea king’s daughter Ariel is a beloved one of losing— and then finding— one’s own voice. The story has been told many times and in many ways. But always the mergirl wants more than her world can offer, and her father demands that she live within the confines of his domain. Her rebelliousness costs the little mermaid her voice and nearly her soul. But the power of good prevails, and Ariel emerges proud and unchanged.
And yet this is only half the story. So what of Ariel’s nemesis, Ursula, the sea witch? What led to her becoming so twisted, scorned, and filled with hatred? Many tales have tried to explain her motives. Here is one account of what might have shaped the sea witch into a detestable and poor unfortunate soul.

Ursula has, and always will be one of my favourite Disney villains. The cover is beautiful, she looks divine (much like the drag queen that inspired her), with a slight look of menace in her eyes and originally I liked the idea - to fill in the back story of Ursula and figure out why she came to be who she was.

The novel opens frighteningly, with perhaps a very graphic description of Ursula's wrath upon others, so I'm not sure if it quite fits for the opening to a Disney novel. I add that this takes place in in the (Essex) town of Ipswich no less - dare I say chosen just because of the name, nothing more...

Shortly after, new characters are introduced, three sisters who are friends with the sea witch. They've a cat... but we're now at the point where things take a second flight of fancy, where their cat has the same name as the author? Pardon... Excuse me?

Elsewhere other Disney characters are mentioned and somehow the Disneyverse is intertwined? I don't want a story featuring Snow White, Maleficent or The Beast... this is supposed to be about Ursula. Granted, I read this as a standalone novel, rather than part of a series. By this point, I think I had slightly lost the plot with the book as a whole and found great delight in picking out its flaws thereafter.

Sebastian and Flounder don't exist in this version of the story, but somehow Scuttle does; “Mum” features a few times; Tea is taken with cream and sugar and the one that takes the biscuit is that somehow The Enchantress from Beauty and The Beast has a major plot role of The Little Mermaid.

From what originally held so much promise and could have been potentially entertaining, we end up with dialogue straight from the 1989 story in places, and the end result not really being about Ursula at all...

Perhaps someone younger than myself, would enjoy this, but me, as a diehard fan of the original 1989 classic film, I feel this is a poor unfortunate soul of a book.

So, this one was my mistake! I knew that this book was the 3rd of a series, but I thought that the books in the series were only loosely related, since the films are all different. I was wrong!

In my opinion, you definitely need to read the other two books first for this to make sense. I was constantly wondering why certain characters were in the narrative at all, but I think they must be through-lines from the other books! I do think I'll go back and read the first two and then give this one another try.