Poor Unfortunate Soul: A Tale of the Sea Witch by Serena Valentino
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
In comparison from The Beast Within: A Tale of Beauty’s Prince, this book is a great improvement. However, Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen still stands as the best in the series. When you see a character on the cover of a book, you assume that they will be the main character in the book. When the book description poses the question, “What led to her [Ursula] becoming so twisted, scorned, and filled with hatred?” you assume that the book will be all about Ursula. The book started off with a great intro to Ursula’s past, a tragic story not of a romance but of a father/daughter relationship. Valentino even goes as far as using the exact lines/lyrics from the movie, giving credit to the well known “Poor Unfortunate Souls” song.
Suddenly chapters start shifting POVs and we are brought to the world of Princess Tulip (see The Beast Within: A Tale of Beauty’s Prince) and to the world of the insane evil triplet witches. I was not impressed with their story line in The Beast Within, and once again I am not all impressed with their addition to this story. At least with book 3 in the series, I am able to see how Valentino is trying to pave the way for a complete different story perception (if that is the proper wording?). It would appear that Valentino is not very preoccupied on just writing a back story to our well known villains, rather she is trying to write a complete series about these triplet witches and their sister Circe, while also adding in the villain-back-story idea to build the build the sisters background.
I had lent my mother Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen because it had captured my mind. After reading The Beast Within: A Tale of Beauty’s Prince, I had even told her I would not trouble her with wasting her time on the book. Poor Unfortunate Souls is not an exception either.
Celaena Renee 
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