Trust & Obey

Hey! So, for this week I’m taking a break off of Christmas books, however, that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy winter themed novels!

Conceal, Don’t Feel by Jen Calonita is a part of a Disney’s A Twisted Tale series. They have tons of spins on Disney favorites from Cinderella’s So This is Love to Alice in Wonderland’s Unbirthday and I plan to try different ones now that I have read this one! Let me know if you want to hear how other books from this series go!

This book came out in 2019 (I have reviewed a lot of 2019 books this year) along with Snow White’s Mirror, Mirror. For 2020, Disney released Unbirthday, So This is Love, and Peter Pan’s Straight on Till Morning. So, if this book piques your interest there are a lot more to choose from!

Conceal, Don’t Feel is the tale of how Elsa and Anna were ripped apart. Elsa is raised to become the future queen of Arendelle to make her parents proud, unaware of her sister and her powers that set her apart from all others. Anna lives with her parents, Tomally and Johan, who run a bakery in a mountain village far away from the city of Arendelle and from Elsa. As the coronation of Princess Elsa draws near, Elsa begins to unravel and the death of her parents unleashes her powers. She must learn how to deal with the grief and the power in tandem with another shocking discovery.

The highlights of this novel were that Calonita really switched things up in the storyline yet was able to weave in characters from the movie in a way that made sense and wasn’t unnecessary. She also had some good quotes in here that I thought were pretty great. I got to say my favorite was “After the storm comes the sun” (Chapter 36). I also just love Elsa. As a little girl, I didn’t relate very strongly to other Disney princesses but I remember feeling a tie to Elsa and her character. She feels like she can’t be who she is and has to do what her parents need her to do. She wants to be an ice queen but she feels she’s got to pick. So, she picks duty over feelings but it doesn’t work for long.

I also really liked the theme of fear controlling people. I think a lot of us are controlled by fear and act out of it. Many of us spend a lot of our lives trying to be freed from it. I saw this idea in the movie and the author exacerbated that in the book. But as we all know; love is stronger than fear and that is a key theme that goes hand and hand in the plot. Hope is also apparently stronger than fear (according to President Snow of The Hungers Games). As a Christian, this is extra true. God’s love is stronger than fear and overcomes it all. Because of my relationship with God, I have nothing to fear. That doesn’t mean I don’t deal with fear and anxiety, though!

As far as downsides to this book goes, I would say I hated that the author inserted parts of the movie screenplay. It made this book feel far more disgenuine and unrealistic. Especially, when she added lyrics from the songs (I cannot stand that). I felt that through the entire book and it killed certain parts for me. Calonita did a great job weaving in these touching moments but that would be broken by the insertion of screenplay. I think if I hadn’t watched the movie then I wouldn’t have felt that cheesiness. However, anyone who reads this will have most likely seen at least Frozen so I think most people would feel the cheesiness.

Conceal, Don’t Feel by Jen Calonita is a decent book. I didn’t just love it but I think any young teen or preteen would really like it! It was very clean and had a solid storyline with the same lovable characters from Frozen and Frozen 2, which if you haven’t seen the second movie you should. I would also recommend this to any Disney fan! It’s got that classic Disney feel with the fantasy, romance, and subtle comedy. I definitely plan to try another one to get a good feel for the overall series!

Which Twisted Tale book do you think I should try next? Would you read Conceal, Don’t Feel?