**QWERTY**

Beauty Never Dies by Cameron Jace
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Peter Pan has a plan. Since it's been hundred years since his friends were all cursed by the Brothers Grimm, he is about to wake up Sleeping Beauty, his eternal lover. Oops, you didn't know that. Blame it on the Grimms.
But in the middle of the ceremony, he is visited by the Evil Queen who manipulates him into helping her with information about Snow White. This or she will expose him as he has been secretly kidnapping kids to help him rebuild Neverland in the Dreamworld.
After the deal is made, Peter continues with the ceremony, bringing Sleeping Beauty back into life. What Sleeping Beauty is capable of and who she really is are like nothing ever written in the books.

This one is very hard to rate because I really, really liked the previous prequels. It might well be a 1-star read, but I don't know, I think I might be biased due to my love for fairy tale retellings. Hurm, I would still read the subsequent prequels and Snow White Sorrow, and I may change my ratings for the published prequels accordingly.

Actually, this...did not sound like a fairy tales retelling, instead it sounded like a fairy tales parody.

And sadly, not a funny one too.

All the comments directed towards the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Count Dracula didn't get me laughing, I found some of them to be offensive instead.

I'm afraid Cameron Jace had taken the idea too far because there are simply too many characters introduced up to this novella, and some of them aren't even created by the Grimm Brothers. How do I say this...with fairy tales or classic retellings, the more alterations introduced, the more appealing they may sound, but at the end of the day, there is actually little room for dramatic changes in characterizations.

For example, Mr Darcy is my all-time favourite book boyfriend so whenever there is a book appear on the market based on Pride and Prejudice, I'd go gaga for it but I don't think I can bear the idea of reading something bad about Mr Darcy e.g. he had an affair or he has a bastard son.

Well, I'm not saying it's wrong for any authors to write opposite things about any characters we've known all our lives but I hope they'll not change the characters too much until they lost their essence and dignity (not sure if I chose the right word but that was what came into my mind).

For example
1. The Evil Queen said 'butt' and 'whateva'.
2. Peter Pan put his hand behind his neck and stretched out his body, showing off as what he claimed as the beauty of his lean and slender curves, wanting to get the Evil Queen's attention.
3. Sleeping Beauty lit 'Hunchy's' ass on fire.

*sigh* I know my review seems very personal. I still associate the Evil Queen with elegance not someone who would say words like butt and whateva, Peter Pan with innocence, not someone who would like to seduce someone else as old as his mom, and Sleeping Beauty with grace, not someone who would...ermm...lit someone else's ass on fire.

Some other issues I had with this novella;
1. Hunchy, as the term of endearment for the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
2. Peter Pan repeatedly saying he doesn't want to grow up. Well, I think we all get it the first time.

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