Part of Your Nightmare by Vera Strange
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
Part of Your Nightmare is the first book in Disney’s Chills series, which features all new characters making deals with famous Disney villains.
This is a Middle Grade anthology series and does read very true to that age group.
In this installment we follow 11-year old, Shelly Anderson, who spends a lot of her time at the aquarium owned by her parents. She loves marine science and knows a lot about the ocean and the creatures who live there.
At school, Shelly is a member of the swim team and wants so much to be accepted by the popular girls on the team. In fact, being popular is a big focus for Shelly.
On a school trip to the aquarium, Shelly is hanging out with the popular girls, Kendall, the queen bee, and the twins, Alana and Attina. She’s excited about the acceptance she is starting to feel from them. They actually consider her a friend. She can’t mess this up.
When Kendall challenges her to do something she would never normally do, Shelly succumbs to the peer pressure. Her action has horrible consequences, summoning the Sea Witch Ursula and putting Shelly within her grasp.
Shelly apparently never saw the movie The Little Mermaid, so she is unaware that Ursula is a dangerous negotiator; someone she doesn’t want to be a making a deal with.
Unfortunately, without this knowledge, Shelly does just that. She makes a deal with the witch that will allow her one wish, to be the best swimmer, that way she can win competitions for her team and secure her popularity for sure.
As I am sure you can imagine, there’s hidden aspects to this deal and it doesn’t go as Shelly imagined at all. Life as she knows it is now at stake, can she figure out a way to break the deal before it’s too late!?
Part of Your Nightmare is a great start for this anthology series. I enjoyed this one. The ending took me completely by surprise. It was definitely chilling with a heavy dose of Goosebumps vibes. Fun and frightening!
The dialogue wasn’t the greatest, but I am hoping this author can improve with that over the course of the series. It just didn’t feel natural, or in any way like kids this age would talk.
Other than that, I enjoyed the imagery, the incorporation of Ursula and the lessons taught over the course of the story. I absolutely plan to continue on with this Spooky Middle Grade series.
