{"id":252,"date":"2019-08-29T16:38:24","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T16:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taxpaws.com\/?p=252"},"modified":"2019-08-29T16:39:23","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T16:39:23","slug":"escape-from-the-isle-of-the-lost-warning-may-contain-spoilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/29\/escape-from-the-isle-of-the-lost-warning-may-contain-spoilers\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape from the Isle of the Lost: Warning May Contain Spoilers***"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nforth and final book did an excellent job of setting up for the 3rd<\/sup>\nand final Descendants movie. As usual, the book was fun to read and\nadded more explanation to the Descendants world as a whole. I must\nadmit that this book was not as well written as the lead in to\nDescendants 2, \u201cRise of the Isle of the Lost\u201d, but still served\nits purpose. This book seemed somewhat rushed compared to the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2013 \u201cone 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\u201d. I think that Del La Cruz did a reasonable job with the creation of Celia, though it doesn\u2019t appear that Celia is too evil \u2013 a trickster maybe but not necessarily evil. It seems that Celia actually wants to go to Auradon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nbook did something that none of the others (books or movies \u2013\nthough little detail was given in Descendants 1) have, it clearly\nestablishes the ages of the characters. Mal, Jay, and Evie are\ngraduating seniors, which means they are 18 or about to be 18. This\nhelps me understand the opening scene of Descendants 3. Carlos and\nJane are juniors, which means they are 17 or about to be 17. This is\nimportant as the VK\u2019s have been in Auradon for two years. I guess it\ncan be assumed, for those who have a keen sense of detail \u2013 that\nthe ages of Mal and Ben are given in the first movie as we know Ben\nis 16 at the time and he states in the dating scene that they (Mal\nand Ben were the same age). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n


One\nof the major themes in the book has to be \u2013 life is going to change\nwhen you grow up. This is illustrated a few ways such as the villian\nkids \u201cVK\u2019s\u201d growing apart and doing their own things. Mal,\nbecoming more a lady of the court \u2013 the future queen of Auradon,\nEvie continuing to make money with the fashion business, Jay deciding\nif he wants to go to college or become an international ROAR star.\nSince Carlos is a year younger, he is now spending a lot more time\nwith Jane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncharacter development of Mal is always good to see. In this book, the\nreader is able to see that although she takes her duties in Auradon\nseriously, she still does not have the heart to turn her back on her\nhistory. This is shown when she wants to make a special trip to the\n\u201cIsle of the Lost\u201d while she is out touring Auradon and learning\nabout it\u2019s different peoples \u2013 she is not afraid to speak up when\nthe Isle is left off of the list of the places to visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nbelieve that Jay had showed maturity when deciding on a college with\nhis selection process as he gave serious thought to where he wanted\nto end up. I think it was clever that Jay did not go to Agrabah State\nUniversity as he was concerned that his father\u2019s (Jafar\u2019s) reputation\nwould follow him around and he wanted to be his own person without\nthe stigma of his father overshadowing him. This shows the reader, at\nleast in my opinion that Del La Cruz wanted to show the reader that\ndecisions aren\u2019t always easy even though there was part of Jay that\nwanted to return home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nalways, Disney was very creative with references throughout the book.\nFor example, I liked the names of the colleges like Agrabah State\nUniversity (ASU), Magical Institute Training (MIT), and Sherwood\nForest University. I find it interesting that the letters of the\nfirst two colleges are the same as well known colleges in the United\nStates of America, they go along nicely with the whole \u201cUnited\nStates of Auradon\u201d theme. They further continue the whole theme\nwith the reference to the all important SAT (Salagadoola Abracadabra\nTest).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mal\ndecides to go to the Isle as a representative from Auradon to focus\non the growth of the Villain Kid (VK) program. I think overall the\nadventure to recruit VK\u2019s was an important element of the book as the\nfour reformed VK\u2019s had to show growth when thinking about how to\nrecruit. I liked the fact that Mal and company got no results when\nthey were trying to shove Auradon culture down people\u2019s throats \u2013\nthis highlights the theme that not everyone thinks they are bad just\nbecause they are not the same. It also shows in a silly way that you\ncan not just march into someone\u2019s country and change their values\novernight (naturally Del la Cruz probably did not want to focus on\nthis theme as it is not fun, but changing people\u2019s values and belief\nsystems can actually be seen as core to their recruitment process). I\nactually thought it was clever when they came up with the concept of\nVillain Kid (VK) Day as it actually caters to the market that they\nare trying to recruit. Villains like to feel famous and important \u2013\nmind you so do people who are not necessarily evil. It appeared that\nafter VK Day was announced, people actually felt that going to\nAuradon was actually a big deal. The whole adventure shows the reader\nthat not everything is black and white as the VK\u2019s got more results\nwhen they actually thought of what other VK\u2019s felt rather than\ntelling them what they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also\nlike the development of Hades relationship with Uma or should I say\nthere doesn\u2019t seem to be much of a relationship because Hades and Uma\ndo not necessarily see eye to eye. There are times when it appears\nthat Hades may think that Uma is an irrelevent little girl. I kind of\ngot that impression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for\nthe rest of the book, it just goes on to say what has happened\nleading up to the graduation and after the graduation and served as\nfurther filler \u2013 not necessarily a bad thing in this case \u2013 to\nallow the reader to learn more about Auradon and its culture of\ngoodness. As always, I believe that the books should have been turned\ninto a mini series which was available to watch \u2013 though the books\nare good too as it leaves a little bit to the imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my next post, I will evaluate how Descendants 3 ties everything together for a successful completion of the series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n4\/5<\/span> \n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Escape from the Isle of the Lost: Warning May Contain Spoilers***”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies-and-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}