in The Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel, for Fans of the Disney Channel original movie Descendants, comes the prequel novel of the series, The Isle of the Lost. Written by acclaimed author Melissa De La Cruz, it tells the story of how the four villain kids, Mal, Evie, Carlos, and Jay became the inseparable friends we see in the movie. Mal, the daughter of the evil Disney villain Maleficent, is the most feared and baddest kid on the isle. She doesn't mind having all the power she does, in fact it brings her joy to wreak havoc on the people of the isle. When Evie, daughter of the evil queen, finally emerges from the broken down castle she and her mother was banished too, Mal sees her as a target for new tricks.
All seems to be going well, at least for Mal, when Diablo, Maleficent's crow companion appears. It would have been nothing out of the ordinary if it wasn't for the fact that Diablo had been frozen in stone by an unbreakable spell on an island with no magic. Maleficent believes this to be a sign that her Dragon's Eye, an evil staff only second to Fairy Godmother's wand's power, is somewhere on the isle. And she wants Mal to find it. Accompanied by Jay, Jafar's son and Mal's partner in crime, Carlos, Cruella De Vil's son and the weakest yet smartest kid on the isle, and Evie, The four unlikely companions will be send to the farthest corners of the isle to find the Dragon's Eye at whatever cost. But what they may find along the way is something far more valuable than any magic.
My Thoughts
I absolutely love Decendants. Sure it's cheesy and babyish, but it's Maleficent
related so of course I like it. For those of you who don't know, the story of Decendants is that all of the Disney movies apparently take place in the land of Auradon. After all the Disney villains were defeated, Belle and the Beast became the king and queen of Auradon. The first thing they did was banish all the villains to this island called the Isle of the Lost, and secured it with a magical barrier where no one could come in and no one could come out, and most importantly, no magic on the isle. The villains obviously didn't like this, but there was nothing they could do. And so they plotted their revenge until eighteen years later, after they all had kids. Meanwhile, back in Auradon, the son of Belle and the Beast, Ben, is going to become king soon, so his father is letting him have more responsibility over the kingdom. After a while, Ben decides to bring over four villain kids from the isle to attend Auradon Prep, the most prestigious school in Auradon. And the four kids he chooses are Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos, the children of the most feared villains. While Ben sees this as an opportunity for the four to change, their parents see it as a way for them to use the magic on the other side to destroy the barrier. And so Mal and her friends must choose whether to obey her parents, or if being good is a change for the better.
The movie plot aside, I think The Isle of the Lost and the rest of the series does a good job tying all the information from the movies, the show, the other books, and the shorts all together in an understandable way. it's a good first step for someone who wants to get into the series, and can be read as a stand-alone series for someone who doesn't want to watch them. I find it a well written book for a movie based one!
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