The forth and final book did an excellent job of setting up for the 3rd and final Descendants movie. As usual, the book was fun to read and added more explanation to the Descendants world as a whole. I must admit that this book was not as well written as the lead in to Descendants 2, “Rise of the Isle of the Lost”, but still served its purpose. This book seemed somewhat rushed compared to the others.
This book does an excellent job setting the stage for the new characters of Hades and Celia. It also expands on what Uma has been up to since Descendants 2. It is evident, when reading about Uma that she actually did miss her crew, or dare I say her friends. I believe that the introduction of Hades was done very well since it gave the reader a glimpse into what his life was like before he got banished as well as how he had tried to escape the Isle a few times. I like ho Hades is introduced and the following can sum him up – “one of the miserable wretches on the Isle of the Lost is none other than Hades. He too lives on rotten food and wicked dreams but unlike the other villains, who became ageing losers. Hades is a rock star”. I think that Del La Cruz did a reasonable job with the creation of Celia, though it doesn’t appear that Celia is too evil – a trickster maybe but not necessarily evil. It seems that Celia actually wants to go to Auradon.
This book did something that none of the others (books or movies – though little detail was given in Descendants 1) have, it clearly establishes the ages of the characters. Mal, Jay, and Evie are graduating seniors, which means they are 18 or about to be 18. This helps me understand the opening scene of Descendants 3. Carlos and Jane are juniors, which means they are 17 or about to be 17. This is important as the VK’s have been in Auradon for two years. I guess it can be assumed, for those who have a keen sense of detail – that the ages of Mal and Ben are given in the first movie as we know Ben is 16 at the time and he states in the dating scene that they (Mal and Ben were the same age).
One
of the major themes in the book has to be – life is going to change
when you grow up. This is illustrated a few ways such as the villian
kids “VK’s” growing apart and doing their own things. Mal,
becoming more a lady of the court – the future queen of Auradon,
Evie continuing to make money with the fashion business, Jay deciding
if he wants to go to college or become an international ROAR star.
Since Carlos is a year younger, he is now spending a lot more time
with Jane.
The character development of Mal is always good to see. In this book, the reader is able to see that although she takes her duties in Auradon seriously, she still does not have the heart to turn her back on her history. This is shown when she wants to make a special trip to the “Isle of the Lost” while she is out touring Auradon and learning about it’s different peoples – she is not afraid to speak up when the Isle is left off of the list of the places to visit.
I believe that Jay had showed maturity when deciding on a college with his selection process as he gave serious thought to where he wanted to end up. I think it was clever that Jay did not go to Agrabah State University as he was concerned that his father’s (Jafar’s) reputation would follow him around and he wanted to be his own person without the stigma of his father overshadowing him. This shows the reader, at least in my opinion that Del La Cruz wanted to show the reader that decisions aren’t always easy even though there was part of Jay that wanted to return home.
As always, Disney was very creative with references throughout the book. For example, I liked the names of the colleges like Agrabah State University (ASU), Magical Institute Training (MIT), and Sherwood Forest University. I find it interesting that the letters of the first two colleges are the same as well known colleges in the United States of America, they go along nicely with the whole “United States of Auradon” theme. They further continue the whole theme with the reference to the all important SAT (Salagadoola Abracadabra Test).
Mal decides to go to the Isle as a representative from Auradon to focus on the growth of the Villain Kid (VK) program. I think overall the adventure to recruit VK’s was an important element of the book as the four reformed VK’s had to show growth when thinking about how to recruit. I liked the fact that Mal and company got no results when they were trying to shove Auradon culture down people’s throats – this highlights the theme that not everyone thinks they are bad just because they are not the same. It also shows in a silly way that you can not just march into someone’s country and change their values overnight (naturally Del la Cruz probably did not want to focus on this theme as it is not fun, but changing people’s values and belief systems can actually be seen as core to their recruitment process). I actually thought it was clever when they came up with the concept of Villain Kid (VK) Day as it actually caters to the market that they are trying to recruit. Villains like to feel famous and important – mind you so do people who are not necessarily evil. It appeared that after VK Day was announced, people actually felt that going to Auradon was actually a big deal. The whole adventure shows the reader that not everything is black and white as the VK’s got more results when they actually thought of what other VK’s felt rather than telling them what they want.
I also like the development of Hades relationship with Uma or should I say there doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship because Hades and Uma do not necessarily see eye to eye. There are times when it appears that Hades may think that Uma is an irrelevent little girl. I kind of got that impression.
As for the rest of the book, it just goes on to say what has happened leading up to the graduation and after the graduation and served as further filler – not necessarily a bad thing in this case – to allow the reader to learn more about Auradon and its culture of goodness. As always, I believe that the books should have been turned into a mini series which was available to watch – though the books are good too as it leaves a little bit to the imagination.
In my next post, I will evaluate how Descendants 3 ties everything together for a successful completion of the series.
4/5
Do you think it’s racist to change the races of characters???
I do not necessarily believe that it is racist to change the race of characters but sometimes unnecessary, we have good actors of all ethnic groups that can play their respective races. I guess that’s why we call them actors – some people just like to play roles of a different perspective.