Time for Reflection on This New Book!

Ashtyn Britt
abritt@lc.edu

Welcome back to the Twisted Tales series once again! This time we follow Reflection: A Twisted Tale by Elizabeth Lim, which shows what would happen if Mulan had to travel to the underworld to save Li Shang. Instead of being attacked and injured by Shan Yu, the head of the Huns, it is Li Shang who is injured and appears to be lying on his early deathbed.

When Mulan sees the ghost of Li Shang’s father, he assigns his guardian spirit to help her venture to the Diyu, the Underworld, and try to convince King Yama to allow her to rescue Shang before sunrise. The large and strong lion guardian spirit, Shishi, helps her navigate her way through the different and dangerous levels of Diyu in hopes of finding Shang or else risk staying in the Underworld forever!

This book provides a look into Chinese mythology and culture that I hadn’t ever been aware of before and found very interesting. The new characters introduced are splendidly entertaining, and the adventure is as exciting as the original movie. The book definitely has a different tone and pace than the others in this series, which makes sense because it’s written by a different author than the other books in the series. While it takes a moment to adjust to the changes caused by a new author, these aren’t bad changes, only different. The story itself is wonderful, and I highly recommend if you wish to return to Mulan’s courageous story, you order a copy of Reflection through the library or on Amazon.com!

The next book in this series, Part of Your World: A Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell will explore an alternate ending of The Little Mermaid if Ursula had won, and Ariel hadn’t stopped Eric’s wedding to “Vanessa,” taking place five years later where Ariel returns to the land of humans in hopes of saving the missing King Triton, and possibly even seeing Eric again. Part of Your World: A Twisted Tale will be available September fourth, and can be ordered on Amazon as well.

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